


What you're capable of

by a_big_apple



Series: and it's bright [12]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Dreams, F/F, Gems with Genitals, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Penetrative Sex, Team as Family, Tenderness, Threesome, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:02:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: Pearl is invited to give a talk on building a positive self-image at an off-color pearl colony inhabiting the Reef. She and Volleyball enter the warp stream together.Only Volley arrives.
Relationships: Bismuth/Pearl (Steven Universe), Bismuth/Pearl/Pink Diamond's Original Pearl | Volleyball, Pearl/Pink Diamond's Pearl (Steven Universe), Pearl/Pink Diamond’s Original Pearl | Volleyball
Series: and it's bright [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619890
Comments: 15
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> For [nacre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nacre), who loves Pearl whump as much as I do! 
> 
> Please heed the tags, I write a lot of fluffy domestic things and this one has some of that, but also other indulgences.
> 
> Huge thanks as always to [gimmeshellder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gimmeshellder) for impeccable editing/coaching!
> 
> IMPORTANT UPDATE: Chapter Four now has ART, because [outerspace-iiinnerspace](https://outerspace-iiinnerspace.tumblr.com/) is the BEST

**—One Week Before: Pearl—**

Pearl is elbows deep in soapy dishes when her phone rings, a cheery ukulele tune Steven recorded for her the last time he visited. “Oh dear.” She glances around for a towel, and spots Amethyst lounging facedown on the couch instead. “Amethyst, would you answer my phone for me? It’s in my jacket pocket.”

“Expecting a booty call or something?” Amethyst asks, but rolls off the couch and onto her feet, coming over to shove her hand in Pearl’s jacket.

“No, inside pocket.”

“ _Fresh,_ P.”

“Oh, for stars’ sake.”

“Got it!” With a triumphant grin Amethyst thumbs the green button. “Yyyello, Pearl’s phone! Oh hey. Yeah? Sure, I’ll tell her. Smell ya later!”

“Your phone manners are ridiculous,” Pearl tells her as Amethyst hangs up and leans in to slip the phone back in her pocket.

Amethyst ignores her. “That was Peridot, she’s working the comm station and a message came in for you from some planet somewhere.”

Pearl sighs, rinsing the last of the dishes and then her hands. “I’m guessing there was more to the message than that, but thank you. I’ll go over and see.”

“I’ll come too,” Amethyst says, opening the fridge, “just lemme get a snack first.”

“Amethyst, you just had breakfast!”

“Like, half an hour ago!” She pulls out a tub of cottage cheese, opens it to take a sniff. “Definitely expired.” Then she pops it in her mouth, container and all.

Pearl resists the urge to sigh again; at least Amethyst is always useful as a garbage disposal. “Come on, then.” She steps lightly on the warp pad, hands on hips, but can’t help a smile when Amethyst hops up beside her and grins.

It only takes a moment in the bright warp stream to cross the few miles to Little Homeworld; they land with the grace of habit, and set off together for the comm station. It’s tucked just off the main square, close to the daily bustle, with a wide window facing the path. Looking up as they approach, Peridot waves and then appears in the open doorway, the sleeves of her Steven shirt rolled up to the shoulders. “Ames! Pearl! You know anybody on planetoid 1DH37?”

“Is that where the message is from?” Amethyst asks, lifting a hand and wiggling her fingers; Peridot mirrors her, and they launch into a secret handshake Pearl has seen at least a dozen times now and still can’t follow.

“1DH37?” she asks instead, sliding past them to get inside. “That’s where the Reef is.”

She sits down at the terminal and brings up the message as Peridot and Amethyst shout “Shorty Squad!” behind her; a moment later they appear in her peripheral vision, one at each elbow and leaning a little obnoxiously into her space. “So? What does it say?”

“Peridot, I hope you don’t do this to everyone who gets a message. What if it was something private?”

“Oooh, is it?” Amethyst asks, resting her chin on Pearl’s shoulder.

“I haven’t even opened it yet. This says it’s from...Baroque Beach Programming Committee? I have no idea what that is.”

Peridot frowns. “It was addressed to the Renegade, so I figured it was a pearl thing and you’d recognize it.”

Curiosity overriding any instinct for confidentiality, Pearl opens the message and quickly skims it. “It’s...oh. It’s an off-color pearl commune. They’re inviting me to give a talk on building up self-esteem.”

“Aww,” Amethyst says with a smile. “That’s actually really sweet.”

“Certainly flattering,” Pearl agrees. She pulls out her phone to get a photo of the message—”We really should find a way to make Gem messaging systems compatible with cellular texting”—and composes a reply.

“‘ _I would be delighted to accept your offer and will arrive by warp next week as you suggest_?’” Amethyst reads over her shoulder. “You sound like a stuffy old professor, P.”

“Well, I am two of those things.”

“Stuffy and old?” Peridot asks skeptically, and Pearl scowls.

“A _professor_ and old.”

“Actually I’d say we’re more like teachers. Human professors go to more school and get a lot of degrees for that. In the CPH futurefic I’ve been reading—”

“Human professors don’t have millenia of life experience,” Pearl interrupts, and hits send on her message. “Thank you, Peridot. I’ll let you get back to your shift. A week isn’t that long to prepare, I’d better get writing!”

“Have fun, Professor!” Amethyst calls after her as she leaves.

***

It’s a gorgeous day and she has a class to teach here soon anyway, so there’s little point in going home; Pearl settles on a bench in a grove of trees near the greenhouse instead, pulls a notebook and pencil from her gem, and starts taking down notes.

_-more than what you were made for_

_-more than your programming_

_-as many ways to be a pearl as there are grains of sand on the beach_

_-if you can’t believe it yourself at first, listen to your community, to the friends around you who love you exactly the way you are._

A floral-scented shadow falls over her; lips dust her cheek. “I love you exactly the way you are,” Volley says, heartbreakingly earnest, leaning down over her shoulder. Pearl tips her face to brush their noses together.

“I’m making notes for a speech,” Pearl explains, quiet and close, “but thank you. I love you exactly the way you are, too.”

“ _Pearl_ ,” Volley whines, but has to accept what she so freely gives. Pearl smiles, and kisses the corner of her mouth.

“Sit with me, if you have time?”

 _En pointe,_ Volleyball steps over the back of the bench, folds herself down onto the seat with her sheer skirt fluttering down around her. She still has so much of the balletic grace they’re all programmed with; it’s beautiful, and more crucially, it _suits_ her in a way it never suited Pearl. Volley’s cheek tips onto Pearl’s shoulder. “What’s the speech for?”

“Apparently the Reef’s been taken over by a group of off-color pearls, they invited me. Well,” she amends, “they invited the Renegade. But they’ll get who they get.”

She can feel the shape of Volley’s smile. “The reality’s better than whatever they’re expecting,” she murmurs, winding her arm through Pearl’s.

Pearl hums, neither agreement nor disagreement. “They said I could bring a plus one, and I’d love it if you’d come with me.”

“What about Bis?”

“It’s pearls only.”

“Oh,” Volley breathes, a puff against Pearl’s neck. “That sounds lovely, actually.”

Pearl wraps an arm around her; presses a kiss, firm and speaking, against her cracked eye.

**—The Day Of: Pearl—**

Pearl watches Bismuth read with what’s probably an uncomfortable level of attention, but she can’t pull her eyes away. The low simmer of nerves in her gut slowly rises the longer Bismuth takes, her face at first unreadable, and Pearl twists her hands together in her lap where she’s perched on the anvil.

Then Bismuth blinks; her face pulls, crumples just a little, and her eyes fill. “Pearl,” she says, looking up at last, “this is beautiful. There won’t be a dry eye in the place.”

A titter of relief bubbles up out of her as she reaches for the data screen. “I’m glad you think so.”

Bismuth wipes at her eyes, smiling. “Wish I could go hear it in person, but I get it.”

“I’ll ask Volleyball to record it for you,” Pearl replies, reaching out to take Bismuth’s hand. “They just feel safer—”

“You don’t have to explain it to me. They deserve a space of their own, I don’t need an exemption just because I’m rubbin’ gems with the Renegade.”

Pearl leans in, brings Bismuth’s hand close to kiss it softly. “What did I do to deserve you?”

“Saved the Earth,” Bismuth suggests, closing the admittedly small distance between them. “Liberated Gemkind.” They’re eye to eye with Pearl sitting up here; she tucks her speech back into her gem and slings her arms over Bismuth’s shoulders. With a crooked smile, Bismuth kisses her. “Listened to more than one ramble about sword construction.”

“You’re very attractive when you talk about sword construction.”

“Is that so? Remind me when you’re gonna be back?”

Pearl laughs, kissing her again. “The day after tomorrow, probably. Hold your amorous thoughts until then.”

“Oh, but I want to hear them,” comes Volley’s pout from the doorway; her light footsteps follow, and then her touch on Pearl’s thigh. “Kisses for me too, please. Then I’ll be ready to go.”

“ _Both_ of my girls are leaving me,” Bismuth cries, but cups Volley’s face in her hand to kiss her mouth and then her cracked eye. “What’ll I do?”

“Teach your classes, I’d hope,” Pearl replies, and Volley giggles. Then she hops down from the anvil, and when she holds out her arm, Volley takes it. “Let’s get going.”

Bismuth grins, her put-on complaints gone. “Break your leg! That’s what humans say, right?”

“Close enough.”

Bismuth walks them to the warp, though it’s only just outside her door, and stands with hands on hips and a smile stretched across her face. “Bye, sweet pea,” she says to Volley, who flushes with pleasure at the name; “take care, Renegade.”

“See you when it’s over,” Pearl replies, as automatic as if she had a sword in her hand, though it’s not a battle parting them now. It’s warming, to think of Bismuth loving her then, even though she couldn’t see it.

Then Volley waves and the light of the warp surrounds them, bearing them away.

“It’ll be nice to see the Reef full of pearls,” Volley muses as they travel, floating weightless in the warp stream. Her arm looped through Pearl’s slides down until just their fingers are lightly touching; it’s easier to land after a long warp without being so attached, but Volley’s always touching her, whenever she’s in reach. Pearl squeezes her fingertips and smiles.

“It will. I hope it’s a better visit than we had last time. Are you sure you’ll be alright, seeing it again?”

Volley nods, pink, a tease tucked into the corner of her smile. “It worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

“It di—”

***

The cool, white space inside her gem is a surprise. It shouldn’t be—it doesn’t change, not unless she rearranges it herself—but something about it is off, unexpected. Her form, the blank, mannequin-body it takes in here, is more solid than usual and ringing with something like the memory of pain. Was she hurt? What was she doing?

She hears her own voice murmuring; among the files, Surface Pearl is pacing back and forth, talking to herself. “There are as many ways to be a pearl as there are grains of sand on the beach,” she says, regarding an imaginary audience.

Pearl wrote that, didn’t she? She did. Surface is holding a data screen in her hand, though the files are open to the S section, not D. “Your programming, what you were made for, have no bearing on your worth. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. The way you choose to look and act, the way you choose to be, the way you _choose_ , those are the things that make you unique, and valuable, and deserving of love.”

“My speech,” Pearl says, suddenly remembering.

Surface looks up, startled. “Oh dear.”

Locking eyes, they speak together. “We’re going to be very late.”

“What happened?” Surface asks, putting the data screen back where it belongs, alphabetically under _speech_. Pearl closes her eyes, tries to remember, but all she can recapture is the weightlessness of the warp, the brush of Volley’s fingertips against hers, and then _pain_ , sudden and blunt.

“I...I don’t know.”

Surface regards her. “Well. Should I get the mirror?”

“I don’t think I have time for that,” Pearl says, reaches out to touch Surface lightly on the arm; her own form resolves into the jeans, the sleeveless top, the jacket. “I can keep this for a while longer.”

“Are you sure?” Surface says doubtfully. “That’s a bit...I mean, it’s something one of the _others_ might do. It’s not wartime anymore.”

“No, but—” Pearl pauses. “Is it...getting brighter in here? And...hotter?”

Something’s wrong. She feels it, like the crackle of the air before a lightning strike, like the dissonant tone that rang in her head in the moments before Corruption. Something is happening _outside_ , but she doesn’t have the energy yet to reform; there’s nothing she can do to protect herself. It _is_ getting brighter—the white space that’s usually so clean and calming seems to vibrate with light, oppressive, radiating dread and burning heat. She’s off-balance, like gravity is tilting, and when she looks at Surface it’s clear she feels it too. “We’re in danger here,” Surface says, and whirls to the files. They’re still open to the S section; between _speech_ and _shotgun_ , the Gem sloop sits miniaturized. She grabs it; as it expands she cracks the mast over her knee and discards it, tips the boat over and huddles beneath. “Come on!”

Pearl scrambles beneath it too, tucking arms and legs in. A moment later they’re covered in dark, even as she can _feel_ the brightness growing outside the hull. “I don’t know what’s happening!”

Surface takes her by the arm, squeezes. “Listen. If we crack, it’s going to get strange in here. You remember, don’t you? Be careful, don’t fall in anywhere you can’t get out of again. Reform as soon as you can.”

“But—”

“Brace yourself!”

***

Steven had a game, when he was young, a surface with different indentations, bright yellow pieces with matching shapes. _Precision_. It was supposed to build fine motor skills; if he couldn’t fit the pieces into place fast enough, the board popped up and scattered everything he’d matched.

That’s what it looks like when everything goes still and quiet, and Pearl peeks out from beneath the sloop. All the things she stores have been ejected across the space in all directions, broken on the floor or hanging listlessly suspended in the air. Surface was curled beside her, but when she crawls out from their hasty shelter she finds that she’s alone.

There’s a crack in the ceiling.

Jagged and yawning, it bisects the space above her head; beyond it, inky darkness speckled with stars. It’s dreadful to look at. It’s worse to look away.

She surveys the rest of the damage in a slow circle; there are more cracks, smaller ones that radiate along the curvature of the walls, one that zigzags along the floor. She can see other layers behind them, deeper layers leaking out into this one; the beach, moonlit, her own sobs faintly carrying; the strawberry battlefield littered with gem fragments; the spidery legs of a palanquin; the precise shade and shimmer of the pale pink floor of her Diamond’s room. There are other things, too, that seem to swim when she looks at them, unwilling to solidify into focus—piercing light, the faint oceanic smell of the Reef—she turns away, suddenly dizzy.

There’s nothing for it. If she stays here, not knowing what’s happening outside, she risks shattering completely. If she forms, she’ll be in rough shape but at least she can look for safety.

“Brace yourself,” says Surface again, low and intent, appearing at Pearl’s side with the broken sloop shrunken down in her hands.

“I know,” Pearl replies, resigned. “This is going to hurt.”

**—The Day Of: Bismuth—**

_hey,_ Bismuth texts to Garnet, picking it out with one finger shapeshifted into a stylus. _you see any fun plans at the house in our future? pearl made me promise not to work the whole time they’re gone_

She tucks the phone away again, safe in her pocket as she shoulders back inside Peridot’s new range hood; a touch of soldering on the exhaust and it’ll be ready to install. How Peri _blew up_ the last one she’ll never know, but it’s just as well—always good to have job security.

Her whole pocket buzzes with an incoming text. Sooner than she expected—doesn’t Garnet usually have a meditation class at this time? Probably Peridot wanting an update on the hood. She lays a last precise line of solder, then turns the gun off and sets it aside to cool. “All right, what’s shakin’ here…”

The text _is_ from Garnet. Just two words: _Something’s wrong._

_What...does that mean?_

Dread seeps cold into her chest; somewhere outside of the echo of those words in her head, she hears a shout.

_“—smuth! BISMUTH!”_

Lapis skids to a landing in the doorway, her wings splashing against the frame as she hurries in. “Bis. We got an emergency message. Something happened to Pearl, some kind of accident, they want someone to go there and pick up Volleyball.”

“What?” Bismuth looks down at the text, and back up at Lapis. “What do you mean, some kind of accident?”

Lapis holds out a data screen; the text swims when Bismuth tries to read it. “They didn’t say. Just that it’s urgent, and not to warp there alone.”

She’s not used to this, anymore. The tingle of shock radiating out to her fingertips; the cement in her feet. Five thousand years ago, she would already be moving. She can’t seem to move.

Lapis’ hand touches hers, circles her wrist and squeezes. “Come on. I’ll come with you. We’ll find out what’s going on.”

The touch is grounding, cool as the ocean against her forge-warmed skin. She slides her phone back in her pocket. “Let’s go.” And just like that, she’s running.

***

They exit the warp stream at one end of a huge room lined with shell-shaped doors; dreamy, briny light filters in through the glass of the ceiling. The room is filled with pearls—all shapes and colors, passing in and out of doorways in tangled clusters, laughing or whispering or signing to each other. In any other circumstance, it would bring Bismuth to tears, even though the closest pearls all seem to skitter away when they see who’s arrived.

“You must be here from Earth,” someone says, relief and caution in her tone; Bismuth turns, and finds a pearl as broad and as purple as she is. The gem in her belly is wide too, teal and red melting together, and she looks them up and down assessingly with mismatched eyes. “Wait right here, let me just—” She hustles over to a control podium, pulls up a small screen that’s blocked behind her body. “Hey GA, some Gems are here to pick up our guest.”

“What’s going on?” Bismuth asks, stepping down from the warp; Lapis steps down with her, standing like she’s braced for...well. _Something._

The pearl closes the screen, comes back over to join them. She looks braced, too. “Their warp stream crossed an asteroid field somewhere between Earth and here—there usually aren’t any obstructions, must’ve been an irregular orbit—Renegade got hit. Knocked out of the stream. Volleyball thinks it poofed her.”

“So her gem’s just…” Bismuth starts, trying and failing to process this idea, “...out there? Floating?”

“It’s our best guess,” the pearl admits. “Volleyball was pretty terrified, we didn’t want to push her for details.”

“We can find her,” Lapis says, certain. Determined, when Bismuth looks down at her. “Peri can...calculate trajectory, or something. We’ll find her.”

“We have to,” she replies. Her voice comes out strangled. “And Volley—she’s not hurt?”

“She’s fine,” the pearl says, glancing to the side at one of the shell-shaped doors. “She’ll be here any minute.”

“Can’t we just go get her?” Lapis asks, following the pearl’s glance with a shift of her feet; smooth as anything the pearl steps between her and the door.

“I’m sorry,” she says, not unkindly, “but only pearls are allowed past the lobby. I promise, she’s in good hands and she’ll be right out.”

Lapis bristles, her wings widening; Bismuth lays a hand on her shoulder. “Easy. It’s ok.”

“Bis—”

“I’m Bismuth,” she says to the pearl instead. “This is Lapis. I guess that’s...kind of obvious.”

“You’re Crystal Gems,” the pearl says, with the tiniest hint of awe. “We’ve heard some tales.” She sticks out a hand; Bismuth takes it. “I’m Tiny. If there’s anything we can do to help, just send me a message.”

“Thanks.”

Off to the side, a door slides open— _“Bis!”_ —and then Volley is in her arms, trembling, sobbing a fresh wave of panic into her neck. Bismuth wraps her up close, breathes shaky against her hair.

“It’s ok, sweet pea. It’s gonna be okay.”

**—The Day Of: Volleyball—**

She hides her face in Bismuth’s hair for the warp home, holds onto her so tight her arms are shaking. Tries to remember that she doesn’t need to breathe, even as her breath speeds. Over and over and over she hears the _thud_ of impact, Pearl’s choked-off _hhk—_ of pain, the echo of her own shocked scream, too slow to do _anything_ as Pearl’s fingers were ripped away from hers.

Then the weightlessness of the stream vanishes. Stairs, and doors; then voices filter in, distress and motion she can’t make sense of, and Bismuth’s anxious rumble vibrates into her but she can’t process the words. She doesn’t think they’re for her. Not yet, anyway. Everyone will want to know what happened. She’ll have to tell them. Tell them that Pearl—

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

_“PEARL!”_

Bismuth paces; sits down; stands up; sits back down again. She doesn’t let go of Volley. More voices; the hum of the warp, slicing through every other noise; phones ringing, feet on the stairs, the front door opening and closing.

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

A hand lights gently on her back. “Volleyball.” Blue, soft, close by. The hand soothes slowly up and down. “Volley, we’re going to find her. But we need your recording to know where to look.”

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

Blue’s right. Volley knows she’s right. She’s not stupid. Finding one disembodied pearl in the vastness of space is hopeless without timing, trajectory, velocity. She has to show them now, while the memory is fresh. She breathes, slow and deep, filling herself with the calming smoke and steel of Bismuth’s hair. Then she twists in Bismuth’s lap, just enough to show her gem. She keeps her face hidden. She doesn’t need to watch. She can see it already, behind her eye.

_“It’ll be nice to see the Reef full of pearls.”_

_“It will. I hope it’s a better visit than we had last time. Are you sure you’ll be alright, seeing it again?”_

_“It worked out in the end, didn’t it?”_

_“It di—”_

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

_“PEARL!”_

Bismuth flinches.

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

_“PEARL!”_

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

“Stop,” Bismuth says, quick and quiet, pressing kisses in her hair. “Stop now. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

Stunned silence. Then—

“ _Fuck_.”

“Definitely poofed. Likely cracked as well. We have to move fast.”

“Based on the strength of that impact, I’d say certainly cracked. She’s only a 2.5 mohs—”

“Harsh, Peri.”

“I’m trying to be _realistic_ , we have to be prepared for what we’ll find when we locate her. Impact was 16.82 seconds into the stream, 76.34 light years to planetoid 1DH37, that’s…. Here. So given an estimated path of the asteroid...average weight of a pearl...impact momentum...visible arrangement of nearby celestial bodies based on Volleyball’s glimpse outside the stream...here. This is where we should start looking. Uninhabited sector, several planetoids, one F dwarf star.”

“That’s a lot of space to cover,” says Yellow from close by. Blue’s hand is still on her back, tense.

Peridot _hmms_ in agreement. “We’ll need a ship.”

“I don’t need a ship,” Lapis says, and Volley hears the _slosh_ of her wings coming out. “16.82 seconds you said? I’ll start there.”

“You don’t even _like_ Pearl.”

“Well, Peri, there’s this thing called empathy, I’m trying it out.”

“I’m just saying, I highly doubt you’ll be able to spot her, at least with a decent sensor array we could—”

“Thank you, Lapis,” Garnet interrupts. “Just don’t go alone.”

“I’ll go,” Amethyst volunteers. “It’s not like I’m much use on a ship.”

Footsteps, and movement. “Take this with you.”

“From the fountain—right.”

“And be careful. We’ll meet you out there.”

The warp activates.

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

“I’ll send a message to Rhodonite,” Garnet says when Lapis and Amethyst are gone. “If Lars’ ship is nearby the search area, that’ll be our quickest option.”

“I’ll call Steven,” Greg adds, quiet. “He should know what’s happening, and maybe he can take some of y’all through Lars’ head, or whatever.”

“The Diamonds might lend a ship, if we ask.” Yellow’s voice is close, and it has a sour tinge. “Something small and nimble. Volleyball probably still has clearance on the Legs, but they’re a little unwieldy.”

Garnet hums an affirmation. “That would be a big help.”

Blue’s hand touches her hair, then slides away; the warp sounds again.

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

“Peridot,” Garnet says, “see if you can narrow the area any further, and draw us up a search grid.”

“Already on it.”

“Bismuth—”

“Give it to me straight, Garnet,” Bismuth says, forcefully steady. “What odds are we working with here?”

Volley burrows closer; if she could crawl into Bismuth’s gem and hide, she would.

Garnet sighs. “There are too many variables. I...I can’t see what’s _likely_ , and almost anything is _possible_. But Pearl’s a survivor. If there’s anything she can do to up her chances, you know she’ll be doing it.”

“All right.” Bis’ hand curls around the back of her head. “What can I do?”

“Monitor the comm station at Little Homeworld, for now. Just in case.”

“I want to be on whatever ship’s going out there to find her.”

“You will be. But it’ll take a little while to organize. Stick with the comms until we’re ready to go, and find someone to take over after you.”

“Right.” Bismuth stands, and Volley tightens her grip; a tiny sound she didn’t intend squeaks out of her.

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

“No warping,” Bis murmurs into her hair as they move across the room. “We’ll go on foot.”

_—THUD—_

_“hhk—”_

_“PEARL!”_

Volley nods.


	2. Chapter Two

**—One Day After: Pearl—**

The pain hits her first, sharp and disorienting; she’s been cracked before, she’s _fought_ cracked, but it’s never pleasant or easy. In the first moment it wipes all thoughts from her head, whites out the world around her; she stays conscious by sheer strength of will. Then, as she starts to adapt to it, she’s struck by the light—hot and intensely bright as her feet touch down, the ground shifting and... _grinding_ under her weight. Squeezing her eyes shut against the glare, she takes an unnecessary breath, and regrets it immediately. The air is _dry_ , so dry it sucks any moisture out of her mouth instantly. There must be a star much nearer here than the sun is to Earth; she shades her closed eyes with a hand and waits for them to adjust, searching her memory.

She quickly gives up; she has some sense of the star systems that lie between Earth and the Reef, a half-remembered chart or two, but there are too many possibilities to calculate where she’s landed by proximity of an unknown star to a planetoid alone.

Cautiously she squints her eyes open. They are also rendered immediately, unbearably dry. She’s gotten so used to the deliciously humid environment of Beach City; this inconvenience ratchets the anxiety in her chest tighter.

When she’s able to focus past her own nose, she finds a white expanse—not snow, clearly, though it _looks_ like it—stretching out as far as she can see, flat except for low crusted ridges that criss-cross in a loosely hexagonal pattern. The sky is an ominous red-orange, and devoid of clouds; far off to her left, at the edge of her vision, a jagged shape rises against the horizon. There’s an ocean-y smell, though she can see no water; perhaps, if she’s lucky, she’ll find some speck of moisture to make this place more pleasant.

But first, shelter. She hasn’t glitched yet, but it’s only a matter of time before her form deteriorates. Her best chance of rescue is to hold on to her body and keep it mobile as long as she can; the odds of her gem alone being found in a bleached-white desert are astronomically poor, and she doubts she’ll be able to rush another regeneration. She sets off at a careful jog toward the distant mountainous shape.

The ground crunches beneath her feet like hail, or leaves in the fall; in places it shifts like sand. The ocean smell increases as she gets used to the footing and picks up speed, but she puts her curiosity to the back of her mind. She has to stay focused on the distant mountain; she can _see_ the heat rising off the ground, warping the light, distorting her view. If she stays focused, she’ll make it there.

***

Pearl’s internal clock is impeccable, even now. She’s been flat-out running for the equivalent of four Earth hours, and the intense light of this planet’s sun hasn’t changed or moved at all. Fortunately, the mountain _has_ —she’s getting closer. At least halfway, if she can trust her perception of the distance. If she can keep up this pace, and her body doesn’t give out—

There’s nothing to trip over yet somehow she _does_ , momentum sending her flying and then slamming into the course ground. It tears into her knees and palms and elbows as she tries to keep from banging her gem and shattering herself completely; it _stings_ , and she sucks in a breath between her teeth. Of _course_. Just _perfect_.

She pushes herself back to her feet and finds her legs wobbly, takes a moment to steady herself and brush the glittering crystals off where they’ve stuck in her skin. They come away stained blue. At least the stinging eases once they’re all off of her; she rubs her thumbs and fingertips together, grimacing at the fine dust they left behind. _It’s almost like_ …. Gingerly she touches her finger to her tongue. _Salt. No wonder the air is so dry—this whole desert is a desiccant. That’s...not good._ Her chest tightens; she imagines she can _feel_ the air leaching moisture from her gem, rasping into the cracks and peeling the layers of nacre away—

Lifting a hand to her head, she grits her teeth and thinks of the bottles of water she keeps for Steven and _pulls_ —

The surge of agony sends her back to her knees, empty-handed. _Okay. Okay. No supplies. That’s okay._ She takes a steadying breath, fixes her eyes on the mountain. _Shelter first. Then water, if there’s any to be found. Then find some way to send a message. They’ll be looking for me; I have to make sure they find me, as quickly as possible._

She pulls her jacket off, ties it awkwardly around her forehead, and staggers back to her feet.

A half-hour’s jog away from the promise of safety, Pearl glitches and trips again. She lands on her side this time, hard; if she had ribs, they’d be bruised. As it is, she’s just scraped rawer and so frustrated she could cry. Gem damage always makes her loose-limbed and clumsy, and the glitching is only going to get worse.

She sets off again at a walk; she can’t risk hitting her head and cracking more. At this distance she can make out features in the face of the mountain: it’s gray and rocky, not white, so at least it’s probably not more salt, and there are some promising shadows that might be caves. She doesn’t have Garnet’s future vision, so she tries to imagine the possibilities.

She imagines a whole network of caves inside, or burrowing down into the ground; she imagines an underground stream where she can wash herself of all the stinging salt and wrap her gem in moisture; she imagines some hostile native beast she’ll have to fight weaponless; she imagines drying out before she even gets there, flaking apart layer by layer until she can’t hold on to a body anymore, watching from inside herself as she slowly, painfully disintegrates.

So, just another mission, then. Anything could happen, and nearly every option is terrifying, but that’s never stopped her before.

**—One Day After: Garnet—**

She’s aware, dimly, of the others around her on the ship. Bismuth and Volleyball, inseparable, eyes glued to the viewscreen. The crew, of course, Rhodonite marking off areas they’ve scanned and the Rutiles navigating to the next, Padparadscha suggesting belated sensor adjustments after Rhodonite’s already made them. Lars, quiet in his chair.

Garnet knows these things are happening around her, but she’s not _in_ them. She’s in her mind, following trails, each tenuous connection to a future possibility she can find.

“I’ve got something!” Rhodonite shouts, staring at the pinging light on her screen.

Lars leaps to his feet. “Twins, get us there, fast as we can go!”

The ship touches down on a small gray moon; they find her cracked and glitching, curled into a crater, barely conscious. Bismuth is crying. Everyone is crying, but it’s relief. Every search party’s carrying a supply of fountain water, and when they douse her in it she sighs, blinks her eyes open.

“Oh! Oh, thank goodness.”

Volleyball kisses her, Bismuth picks them both up in her arms; the other ships land too and she’s passed around a chain of tearful hugs.

Possible.

“I’ve got something!” Rhodonite shouts, staring at the pinging light on her screen.

Lars leaps to his feet. “Twins, get us there, fast as we can go!”

The ship sidles up to a spinning planetary ring; Pearl’s been caught in the orbit, but they can’t get any closer. The Star Skipper joins them, and then the Roaming Eye; from the open door Amethyst shapeshifts an arm long enough to grab her, tow her inside to be bathed in healing water.

Possible.

“I’ve got something!” Stevonnie shouts over the comms; they wait anxiously for news, and then their face pops up onscreen again, cradling Pearl’s gem in their hands. “I found her! Just floating!” They’re crying, but it’s all right—they’re crying on Pearl. “She’s gonna be okay!”

Possible.

“I’ve got something!” Peridot shouts over the comms. “She’s out in open space but her trajectory—she’s headed for the star.”

“Then _grab her_ ,” Bismuth grinds out, fists clenching. Peridot’s hands are flying over the controls.

“I’m trying. We’re going as fast as we can. The angle is tricky, we’re at risk of crashing into it ourselves.”

“Open the hatch, I can grab her!” Amethyst shouts. Frantic, painful silence. Then— “Got her! Reel me in!”

Possible.

“I’ve got something!” Peridot shouts over the comms. “She’s out in open space but her trajectory—she’s headed for the star.”

“Then _grab her_ ,” Bismuth grinds out, fists clenching. Peridot’s hands are flying over the controls.

“I’m trying. We’re going as fast as we can. The angle is tricky, we’re at risk of crashing into it ourselves.”

“Open the hatch, I can grab her!” Amethyst shouts. Frantic, painful silence. Then— “We have to get closer! I can’t reach!”

“I can’t _get_ closer at this speed—”

“Doesn’t this ship have a tractor beam?” Lapis shouts, and Peridot slams a fist on the controls.

“CLOD! Radiation from the star is interfering with the scanners, I can’t lock onto her with the tractor!”

A sudden scream—pandemonium—whirling, frantic movement—

“Let me _GO_ , I almost had her!”

“You didn’t, you can’t just launch yourself out of the ship—”

“Pearl is falling into a _fucking sun!_ ” Amethyst shrieks, and on screen Peridot is trembling.

“We can’t. It’s too late. We can’t reach her.”

Possible. It’s all _possible_.

They find her on the freezing surface of an ice planetoid, furthest from the star.

Being knocked back and forth between asteroids like a ball in a pinball machine.

Collapsed and hallucinating on a planet made of salt.

They find a piece of her, in open space. They find the rest of the pieces; Steven heals her, like he did Jasper, and she comes back scarred and scared but _back_.

They never find all of the pieces. They search until Steven is old and gray, and never find enough to bring her back.

They never find her.

“Garnet?”

She focuses in on the here and now. Rhodonite is looking at her; they’re all looking at her. “Anything we should be doing differently?”

“We need to scan in smaller segments, closer range. The radiation from that star is interfering with the accuracy.”

Rhodonite turns back to the controls, nods. “You’re right, the readings start to get wonky the farther out we look…. Drawing up a tighter search grid.” She pulls up a smaller comm screen. “Sun Incinerator to Little Homeworld. We need tighter scans, I’ve made a new grid. Forwarding now. Can you coordinate?”

Yellow Pearl’s face appears, and a sliver of Blue at her side. “Received. Reorganizing search plans. I’ll call the Star Skipper and the Roaming Eye with their next targets.”

“Where to next for us?” the twins ask, and Blue pushes a little further into the screen.

“18G. Sending you the coordinates.”

“Got it.”

“The radiation from the local star is degrading our scanner signals,” Padparadscha announces.

Lars shifts in his seat. “Thanks, Paddy,” he murmurs, sincere.

Behind her glasses Garnet closes her eyes, opens her eye. Returns to the possibilities.

**—One Day After: Stevonnie—**

“Section 27M scanned, I’m moving on to 27N,” Stevonnie reports over the comms.

“Received,” Yellow replies, brisk, and cuts the connection.

Stevonnie sighs. “Only three hundred and eighteen more grid sectors to search,” they say aloud into the close, lonely space of the new and improved Star Skipper.

_We’ll find her._

_We have to find her._

_I know we will._

_That’s not a thing we can know. Even Garnet doesn’t know._

“I need to tell you my stupidest thought,” they say aloud. “If I hadn’t moved out, Pearl might not be filling her time up with other things. She might not have even gone.”

“That is pretty stupid,” they tell themself, but gently. “Pearl would still have a life, even if I stayed in Beach City. She had a life before I left. I know she misses me, but this has nothing to do with that. It’s not my fault.”

“She left me a message a couple of days ago, and I never called her back. I should have called her back. What if that’s the last chance I’ll ever have to talk to her, and I didn’t take it?”

“I can’t live every moment like it’s a last chance. It’s a nice notion but that’s not how life works.”

“I don’t think I really know how life works.”

“Pearl told me once that everything is an opportunity. Even a mistake, even an accident. She was talking about swordfighting, but I think it applies to life too.”

“What’s the opportunity here?”

“Well...when we find Pearl, maybe it would be good to take a little break from the road trip. Spend a weekend at the Temple, and just...catch up. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah.”

_Tell me about—_

“It was years ago. When I first started training with her. Before things got so intense, before we were training together. I made a stupid mistake, I tried to—” They twist their wrist around, a familiar motion now, a showy twirl of a blade. “I got cocky, and I dropped my sword.”

*

 _They were circling, the spar hadn’t even_ begun _yet, and Connie’d already screwed it up with_ showboating. _Her sword clattered to the ground and she froze, a humiliated flush rising in her cheeks; Pearl froze too, mouth pursed. “I don’t have to tell you what you did wrong there,” she said._

_“No, ma’am.” Connie stared at the ground, her own feet in their ready stance, felt her shoulders rising in spite of herself._

_“You’re showing me that you have more confidence than skill,” Pearl said, and Connie shrank a little more._

_This was hopeless. She wasn’t meant for this. Pearl should just give up on her._

_“That’s your opportunity,” Pearl said instead, firm and sharp._

_Connie looked up. “Opportunity?”_

_“I’m underestimating you now. I think I know what you’re about. But you’re smart, Connie. You have one chance to take this back, to surprise me. Don’t waste it.” Then she darted forward to strike._

_Pearl was tall, Pearl was confident, Pearl was strong. Her stance was wide but she was in motion; she expected Connie to be rooted to the spot by her error. All of this flashed through Connie’s mind, ignited her embarrassment into determined anger; she crouched low as Pearl lunged, and threw herself at Pearl’s slender legs. They both went over in a tangle, Pearl with a startled “oof!” and Connie with a “ha!” of surprise that it worked._

_A moment later she was pinned with Pearl’s foot at her throat and Pearl’s swordpoint at her chest, but...Pearl was grinning. Her long nose was bent crooked and her hair was unusually mussed, but she was grinning. “Excellent, Connie!” She set her blade aside, tugged her nose back into shape with a wince. “That was very surprising! A clever start, but you’d need some follow through and a little more grappling experience to beat me that way.”_

_Pearl got to her feet and tugged Connie up with her; with a softer than usual smile, she tucked a stray hank of hair behind Connie’s ear. “You’re going to be a great knight.”_

_*_

_Your turn._

_I’ve...she’s been there my whole life. How could I even—_

_What should we do, when she’s back?_

_Um...let’s...there was this place, in Wyobrado, this river, and you could rent these big tubes and just sit in them and float along and...look at nature, I guess. It looked pretty relaxing, but it seemed like it might be weird to do it alone. That’s not the same as visiting home and spending time with everyone, but. And I guess...it’s not that different from hanging out on the beach._

_It sounds like an experience. It’s a great plan._

Stevonnie opens the comm. “27N scanned, no sign. Starting 27O.”

“Um, received,” comes the soft reply from Blue.

Readings scroll across the viewscreen. 27O, like 27N, is a segment of a small planetoid.

“Looks like there’s a little saline lake down there.”

“Saline like the ocean?”

“Kind of. There’s other stuff in this one that would be toxic for us.”

“But not for Pearl?”

“I don’t think so. But anyway, there’s no concentration of calcium carbonate in the lake large enough to be her. No hard light readings either.”

_D’you remember the time—_

_Yeah. That was...really nice._

_*_

_They came back to the house dripping and chilled, wrapped in a fluffy pink towel the size of a blanket._

_“Ah ah,” Pearl scolded, “you’ll get water all over the floor. Stay there, let me wring out your hair at least.”_

_“But I’m cold,” they whined, earning a tut._

_“That’s what happens when you swim at night. But I turned the heat up, you’ll be warm in no time.” She attacked their hair with another towel and a series of_ hrm _noises. “Goodness, you’re tangled. Don’t unfuse yet, let me get a brush. Better to do it now than separately.”_

_“Pearl—”_

_She pulled a kitchen chair over to the doorway, all business. “Sit here now, it won’t take long.” Stevonnie sighed and sank into the chair, wrapping up tighter in the towel; with gentle efficiency Pearl started easing the salt-crusted knots out. “All right?” she asked, after a quiet moment. “Not pulling too hard?”_

_“No,” they admitted. It was...pretty nice, actually. To just be them, quiet and still and...cared for._

_“I haven’t lost my touch, then,” Pearl replied with a smile. “Your mother—well,_ Rose— _her hair was_ impossible _when she’d been in the ocean. It took hours to detangle. She had so much of it, but it was very fine.”_

 _They glanced over at her portrait, hanging on the landing. A hundred questions sat on their tongue, that all seemed too rude to ask. Did Pearl make_ Rose _sit outside the Temple door like this, submitting to Pearl’s grooming? Did Rose_ ask _Pearl for help? Did Rose feel like this, so warm and loved with Pearl’s hands in her hair? If she did then_ why _did she—_

_“I don’t know if she’s my mother,” they said instead, and Pearl’s brushing stuttered._

_“What do you mean?”_

_“I mean...me, Stevonnie. I have six pretty great parents already. I don’t know if I need one who I don’t even know.”_

_They heard Pearl’s breath, slow and even; then she got back to work. “Six?” she asked, quiet._

_“Sure. Mom and Dad, and Dad, and you and Garnet and Amethyst. That’s plenty.”_

_“Oh,” Pearl replied; she sounded like maybe she was crying. They didn’t turn around to see._

_*_

Stevonnie swallows, opens the comms. “27O scanned. Nothing. Starting 27P.”

 _What if we never find her?_ they can’t say aloud.

_We’ll find her._

**—One Day After: Amethyst—**

She’s never spent much time alone with Lapis before. They both hang with Peri, or with the CGs as a group, or the art classes. It’s not really about Lapis...she’s cool. But they both came out of a place of a lot of self-hate, and sometimes it hurts to remember that too much. Like standing too close to a cliff edge, which Amethyst has tried to do less these days. But that doesn’t really matter right now. They’re all on the cliff edge, waiting to tip over or be pulled back.

P-dot’s got the Roaming Eye under control though, so all Amethyst can really do is be another set of eyes. She settles piggy-back between Lapis’ wings, and they take off into the open space around the ship as if they might find something the scanners won’t.

They might, honestly, and that’s what Amethyst’s afraid of. The ships can scan for a hard light form, or a concentration of whatever pearls are made of that’s the right size. But there’s trace amounts of calcite or whatever all over the place in this system, according to Peri, and the scanners can’t examine every tiny piece.

Amethyst and Lapis can. She’s never seen a shattered gem before, not in person, but...she can imagine. She doesn’t want to imagine, but she can. What Pearl would look like in pieces, floating scattered across the sector.

In anxious silence they range out from the ship, approaching every shimmery piece of space dust floating by; none of them are Pearl, and somehow that only makes the searching worse.

“Doing okay up there?” Lapis asks, quiet. “I mean, obviously not okay, but.”

“Hangin’ on...I guess.” Amethyst sighs, but without any air it’s unsatisfying. “What about that one over on the left?” They approach another glimmer; Amethyst stretches out an arm to grasp it and reel it in, eyeing it up close. “Nope,” she decides, and lets it float. Her stomach tightens unpleasantly; she shouldn’t have eaten that sandwich from the old sandwich pile before they left.

“We’re gonna need some art therapy after this,” Lapis mutters below her, a shudder passing through her wings.

“Everybody is, man. This sucks.”

“Your technique’s really been improving though.”

Amethyst reaches out for another whitish fragment, discards it just as quickly. “You think so?”

“Yeah. I think you’re getting better at eliciting the emotions you want from your work.”

“Cool. Can’t wait to get home and draw the yawning void of space fulla shattered pieces of—” Amethyst swallows down the bile creeping up her throat.

Lapis twists her hand back, touches Amethyst’s calf where it rests around her waist. “Let’s go back and check in with Peri. Maybe there’s some news from the others.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

The hatch pops open when Lapis bangs on it, and she crouches inside to let Amethyst hop off. “Anything?” she asks, and Peridot shakes her head without turning.

“Nothing. _Still nothing._ ”

“Same,” Amethyst replies, and she’s _relieved_ , and then hates that she’s relieved, but she very, _very_ much wants someone else to find Pearl, someone who isn’t looking for _pieces_ of her.

With a disgusted shout Peridot slams her fist down on the console. “There’s just too much space to search! I calculated the odds and they’re—they’re—”

“Clods,” Lapis supplies, and Peri echoes it.

“CLODS!” When she finally spins her chair around, her visor is gone and she’s rubbing tears from her eyes. “If I could just narrow the area more, we could—but I just don’t have enough _data_ , and what if I narrow it too far and we look in the wrong place, what if it takes too long to find her—”

Lapis takes a knee to be at her height, squeezes her shoulder. “Hey. Slow down. You did the best you could with the calculations. We’re all doing the best we can.”

“Pearl usually _looks_ at important calculations, to see if I missed anything.”

“I know,” Lapis soothes, and Peri sucks in an unhappy breath.

“And I never apologized for the awful things I said to her when I first got to Earth. I’m a _clod_.”

Amethyst sits down hard right where she is, feeling tears prickling at the back of her eyes, “I never apologized either, for how shitty I was to her after Rose died. We used to fight _all the time_ , and I never told her I’m glad we don’t fight anymore.”

Lapis reaches out to touch her knee, looking between her and Peri. “You’ll get your chance. We’re going to find her. But you have to hold it together, or we’ll miss something. We just have to keep looking. Okay?”

Slowly, Peri nods, and Lapis looks back to Amethyst.

Every stupid, mean thing she ever said to Pearl is still playing like a movie reel behind her eyes. Every time Pearl probably needed a friend and Amethyst shoved her away, every time Amethyst wanted Rose back and let that anger consume her. So she closes her eyes, tries to breathe like Garnet taught her.

 _Oh, look at you,_ she hears in her mind. Rose’s voice. _Look, Pearl, look how small she is!_

 _An enormous shadow falls over her. Then another voice. Pearl._ “ _Don’t get too close! We don’t know where she came from.”_

_“We’re in the Kindergarten, Pearl.”_

_“You know what I mean. She could be a spy!”_

_“She’s not a spy,”_ _a third voice assures. Garnet._ “ _And she’s not dangerous.”_

_“See?”_

_“Yes, all right, I’m just being cautious.”_

_Rose fills her field of vision_. “ _Are you all alone? Would you like to come home with us?”_

_They’re all so tall. She’s never seen anyone like them before. Anyone like her before. She wants to see them closer; she reaches up her hands._

_Then she’s in the air, held at arm’s length, face to face with a long pointy nose and a shimmery gem and round blue eyes._ “ _She’s awfully quiet. That’s not like an Amethyst.”_

 _“Hi,”_ _she says, just to prove her wrong._ “ _I like your nose. Where’d you come from? Are you like me?”_

 _“Oh,”_ _Pearl says, surprised and soft._

_Amethyst leaves the Kindergarten with them, riding on Pearl’s hip._

She opens her eyes. “Okay. Let’s get back out there.”


	3. Chapter Three

**—Two Days After: Pearl—**

“Boring. What about the Sea Spire?”

“Underway, My Diamond.”

“Show me.” Obediently Pearl spins the observation orb. The Sea Spire is indeed underway, several Bismuths hard at work carving the steps of the lower levels. “It’s not very tall.”

“Not yet, My Diamond.”

Pink Diamond frowns. “What about the Kindergarten?”

Pearl spins the orb again. The Kindergarten is still and quiet, the way a pearl is still before she leaps to obey. The Amethysts are due out any cycle now; a lone Peridot passes by, observing and taking notes on her screen. “Nothing yet, My Diamond, but soon.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Pink Diamond scowls, abruptly straightening. “Boring!” With sudden force she kicks the orb, sends it bouncing across the room; it sparks briefly when it hits the wall, then goes dark. “Ugh,” Pink Diamond says again. “Pearl, send for a Peridot to repair that. They’re clearly not doing anything in the Kindergarten.”

“Right away, My Diamond.”

“I have a meeting with Blue. Stay here and see to it.”

“Yes, My Diamond.” Pink disappears down the stairs; Pearl doesn’t move until she hears the airlock slide open and then shut again. As soon as it does she crosses to the orb. “Oh dear,” she says to the empty room, and rolls the orb back where it belongs. It’ll take a cycle or two for a Peridot to respond to such a small maintenance request, even for Pink Diamond, when the Kindergarten is so near to bursting. But her Diamond has been so _unhappy_ lately, and Pearl can’t allow that. The initial excitement of her colony has started to wear off, but if she can just see things start to _happen_ there….

Perhaps...Pearl could fix it herself.

It wouldn’t be the first time. She recalibrated the console upstairs the last time it needed a tune up, before her Diamond even noticed it was broken. But she’d watched a Peridot do that the first time; she’s never seen the inside of the observation orb.

Still...the pebbles build things they’ve never seen before. If they can do that, certainly Pearl can get the orb back online, right?

She sits criss-cross beside the orb, runs her hands across its surface until she finds an edge; it’s nearly invisible, but one gentle press and it clicks and gives way. Peering inside, she finds the source of the sparks—a fried wire. Easy enough to replace, and reconnect the few that were dislodged when it was kicked, and hammer out the dent her Diamond’s foot made in the delicate casing. She loses track of time a little, falling into the pattern of the wires, observing what connects to what and how and why, but soon enough it’s finished and ready to be closed up again.

Except it isn’t as easy to close as it was to open. At first the panel fits, but not as tightly as it should; the resulting crack makes a strange shadow across the image when she tests it. Perhaps when she repaired the dent she didn’t get it exactly right? She pries the panel off and tries again, and then again, her own frustration building. “Oh _honestly_. _I’m_ tempted to kick you across the room now,” she scolds it, trying to wedge the cover back in again. Now the space seems a little too tight to fit it, but better too tight than leaving gaps, and she gives the corner a little _thump_ with the side of her fist.

Faster than she can react the panel pops out entirely and smacks her in the face, so sudden and shocking that it takes her a moment to register the pain; then it lances into her, sharp, and she clutches her hands to her gem.

“Oh no, oh stars, oh no—”

Foolish, _foolish_ , a cracked pearl is a _useless_ pearl, she knows that just as surely as she knows what she’s made for—and more importantly, she’s seen how her Diamond looks at White Diamond’s pearl, the frightening cracked one, how unhappy the sight makes her, Pearl can’t bear to make her Diamond unhappy, she simply _can’t_ allow it!

Frantically she finally shoves the offending panel into place, hurries up the stairs to examine her reflection in the glass of the dome. She was right—she _is_ cracked—but just barely. If she wasn’t looking for it, if it didn’t _hurt_ so much, she wouldn’t even know it was there.

That’s workable. That...might be workable. It’ll have to be workable. It’s either that or the Reef, but she can’t leave the moon base without permission. Perhaps, if she can engineer some smaller, less distasteful malfunction? Something small enough to warrant repair rather than replacement. Could she fake a memory glitch, and ask permission to travel for data retrieval?

Can she fake anything? She’s never really tried. She leaves things out, surely every pearl does that, she watches and learns and keeps things to herself, that’s all part of becoming better at her job and pleasing her Diamond. But she can’t _lie_.

Can she?

It wouldn’t have to hold up for long. Eventually she’ll start glitching, and that will be much harder to hide; the sooner she can get to the Reef, the better. If it’s just once or twice—to make her Diamond _happy_ —

Pink flashes at the corner of her vision, and she whirls, stumbling, to find the Legs landing outside.

She’s not ready, she’s not _ready_ —

No, this is good. This can work. She can already feel little tremors in her legs, a warning of further destabilization to come. She has to get this over with, before she loses her nerve.

Pearl hurries down the stairs—trips, _stars!_ —takes up a position beside the orb, hands primly folded into a perfect salute.

Down below, the airlock opens and closes; her Diamond’s footsteps ascend the stairs. “I’m back, Pearl,” she calls, then pauses as her head appears. “Oh!”

“The observation orb has been repaired, My Diamond.”

“That was fast! Which Peridot did the work? I’ll put in a good word for her next assignment.”

Pearl pauses. Her Diamond comes the rest of the way up the stairs, crouches down next to the orb to look it over. “Um,” Pearl says, _foolish, why didn’t she prepare for this!?_ And her Diamond glances over at her.

“Pearl? I asked you a question.”

“Yes, My Diamond.”

“Well? Which Peridot?”

“I...I can’t remember, My Diamond!” she shouts, too loud, _too loud!_ “I seem to be experiencing...a problem...with my memory. I...should report to the Reef, for repair.”

Pink Diamond pouts. “I just got back, I don’t want to go out again for such a small thing. Maybe I can override the glitch.”

“My Diamond?” Pearl asks, her whole form clenching with nerves; her gem sends an electric jolt of pain through her as she tenses.

Pink lays a hand on her shoulder, looking her in the eyes. “Pearl, I order you to tell me which Peridot did the repairs.”

Her gem _throbs_ and she chokes back the little yelp that rises up her throat—but she can’t choke back an answer. She’s terrible at this. She’s caught. She’s _caught_. “It wasn’t a Peridot, My Diamond,” she replies, and her form shivers.

Her Diamond’s brows furrow; her hand doesn’t leave Pearl’s shoulder. “Then who was it?”

Pearl closes her eyes, a slow blink, a millisecond of relief from the intensity of Pink’s gaze. “I did, My Diamond.”

“You?” Pink asks, pulling back in surprise. “How?”

Pearl’s hands fold together, pleading. “I’m sorry, My Diamond, please don’t replace me, I only thought it would be faster—”

“It’s all right, Pearl, it was faster,” she interrupts. “I just..didn’t know you could fix things.”

Daring to look up, Pearl finds her Diamond watching her with a quizzical expression, as if she’s been presented with a puzzle. She doesn’t seem... _displeased_ , so perhaps this piece of the truth is all right? “I...I watch the Peridots when they’re here, My Diamond,” she says carefully, “and watched the pebbles build things, at home.”

Pink Diamond’s head tilts a little to the side. Then, suddenly, she _smiles_. “That’s...amazing, Pearl. I suppose you’re right. If pebbles can do it—oh, I miss them.” She sinks back on her heels, sighing. “Maybe I should make some for us here. Out of moon rocks. Moon pebbles! They could build us some things to pass the time.” Then her eyes fix on Pearl again, curiosity sharp as a blade. “What would you ask them to make for you, if you could?”

Pearl’s legs tremble under the attention—she feels fuzzy, like her photons are microscopically out of alignment. She’ll glitch soon, she just knows it. If she could just sit down, she could hide it longer—

“You just thought of something,” Pink says suddenly, and reaches out to touch her again. “Tell me what you thought of, what you’d ask for.”

Pain lances through her again, and her throat tightens. It’s an order. It’s always an order, when Pink is touching her. “I...would ask for a chair, My Diamond.”

Again, that perplexed look, the tilt of the head. “Are you...tired, Pearl?”

“I— I—”

“Tell me,” she says, urgent but soft.

Holding out is impossible. Literally impossible, but she tries, and twitches with the agony of it, just seconds of delay before the bursting of the dam. “I’m cracked, My Diamond!” she cries; horrifyingly, she feels her eyes well up with tears. “I cracked my gem fixing the orb and I thought if I could sit down I could hide it for longer—”

Ah, _there’s_ the glitch, tearing through her and tossing her down on her knees with a little grunt of pain. “I’m sorry, My Diamond, please don’t replace me, _please_ —”

“Pearl, Pearl, I’m not going to replace you for a tiny crack,” Pink says, low and anxious, cradling her head in one huge hand. “Please don’t cry, we can just go to the Reef and get it fixed. I can’t even see it.” Her thumb rubs across the gem’s surface, searching; when it passes over the crack Pearl flinches, biting her lip. Pink Diamond freezes. “Pearl,” she says, sounding startled, “did that...hurt?”

This is the end. This has to be the end. She’s going to be harvested. Or shattered. What a failure of a pearl, fragile, _weak_ , she’s useless this way. There’s nothing she can do but accept it.

“Yes, My Diamond,” she whispers, her throat closing in shame. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Pink says, helping her carefully to her feet; when she stumbles, Pink lifts her into her arms. “I didn’t...know. I’m sorry.”

Shocked, Pearl looks up at her again. Her Diamond is wearing an expression Pearl has never seen on her before. She looks...haunted.

“We’ll go right now,” she says, quiet. “I’ll try...not to jostle you too much. Okay?”

Pearl blinks; dares to rest her aching head carefully against her Diamond’s radiant chest. “Yes, My Diamond.”

Pink carries her back downstairs, out of the base, across the craggy lunar surface to the Legs. Sets her gently down on the floor beside the control dais, takes an awkward running start before launching into the atmosphere. Pearl keeps her eyes down, folds her arms around her knees, as if taking up less space will make her less of a burden, but she can feel her Diamond’s gaze on the back of her neck. It keeps her focused. Keeps her calm.

“Pearl,” she says, soft against the ambient hum of the ship. “What does it feel like to you? To be cracked? I’ve never been.”

“Thanks the stars for that,” Pearl says earnestly, looking up at her. “You should be protected at all costs, my Diamond. But...mmm...it feels like...like I’m jumbled. Fuzzy.”

“Is it painful?” she asks, and looks frightened of the answer. Pearl can’t fathom why she would be frightened.

“Yes, my Diamond,” she admits.

“Right now?”

Pearl blinks. “Yes, my Diamond.”

“So you—” Pink Diamond swallows, closing her eyes. “Do all pearls feel pain? Or are you...special somehow?”

“Don’t all living things feel pain, my Diamond?” Pearl asks, hesitant. “Gems, organics.” She hesitates. “Pearls.”

Abruptly Pink Diamond shuts off the ship’s engine, sits down hard on the dais to cover her face with her hands. Alarmed, Pearl wobbles to her feet. “My Diamond—”

“Sit down, Pearl!”

She does. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” Pink Diamond says, twisting, pinning Pearl with her eyes. “I’m sorry. You...you learned to fix things. You _think_ things. You hurt.” There’s a fine tremor in her hands, distress in her tone, and it’s almost as painful to Pearl as the crack is. “Why didn’t anyone tell me she was— _you’re_ a _person?_ ”

Startled, Pearl curls her arms around herself again. Is she a person? What her Diamond said is true, she does learn, she thinks, she hurts, is that what makes a person? She always thought...it just made her a better pearl. Better fit to serve her Diamond. But...they aren’t the same. “I’m not...like you, my Diamond,” Pearl ventures, respectful, cautious. “I’m not...everyone says pearls aren’t Gems.”

“Why?”

“Because...because of how we’re made. Part organic.”

“But you’re _made_. White tucked something away in a clamshell and _you_ burst out. Just like we tucked my essences away in the rocks of the Kindergarten, and Amethysts will burst out. That’s—” she pauses, something clearing in her expression. “That seems the same to me. I just never thought about it before.”

“So...I am like—” _You._ Pearl almost chokes on the thought itself, too blasphemous to entertain, though it glows in her mind like a beacon and she can’t shut it off now that she’s had it.

“I think you are, Pearl,” her Diamond says, standing again. “Let’s find out what you’re capable of.”

***

Pearl wakes face-down and limbs at awkward angles, head throbbing like a drumbeat. There are rocks poking her uncomfortably, but at least the stone she’s sprawled on is cool; when she turns her cheek to feel it her gem throbs harder.

Right. She’s cracked, glitching, body failing her, stranded on a dried-out husk of a planet in the middle of nowhere. Nobody’s here to pick her up and carry her. She doesn’t remember making it to the mountain, but she must have; she can’t feel the sun baking her, at any rate, so she found some shade before she passed out.

Slow and deliberate, she pushes herself to her knees, tries to get a look around through the swimming dizziness that movement brings.

She’s in the mouth of a cave. Just barely in—the sharp shadow it casts is only feet away, and beyond that, salt and intense sunlight. Turning away from the sun, she can see that the cave extends into the mountain, far enough that she can’t see a back to it in the murky dark. Based on the shapes, it looks naturally occurring—so there must have been water here at some point, or something else that erodes rock structures in a similar way—and it’s a relief that she probably won’t have to fight some huge tunneling alien creature for possession of her new shelter.

She needs to get up. She needs her legs to work, and needs to see how far the opening goes, see if there’s water still back there somewhere. She tells herself these things, but it doesn’t make her form any more compliant.

On wobbly limbs she crawls closer to the wall, pulls herself upright and swallows down the sickening surge of pain and disorientation. She’s lasted longer than this. She can keep going.

So she does, picking her way step by step, hugging the wall, as darkness closes around her. There’s no sound but the shuffling of her own movement and the rasping of her breath; no dripping, no animal sounds, nothing with any promise at all.

Until she trips again.

“ _Stars!_ ” she hisses, a jumble of limbs, and worse, a jumble of sharp pains and dull; she’s opened a gash on one forearm and another on her hip, trying to catch herself on the wall in the dark. Something rolls between her feet as she tries to sit up and take stock; feeling out the shape of it with her hands, she finds a sort of cone, runs her fingers along the smoothed-out lumps of its length. A stalactite, fallen from the ceiling; there’s a sharp edge where it broke off. It’s dry as a bone now, whatever moisture it was formed by long gone. _Wonderful._

It’s too risky to keep going. She can’t see, can’t light her gem, and if she falls again she could shatter. But maybe she can make this find work in her favor. Carefully, the stalactite in one hand and her other following the wall, she makes her way out toward light again to regard her treasure. It’s a decent size, not too big to wield efficiently, not too difficult to hold on to….

Determined, she knots her jacket tighter where it’s come loose around her head, ignores the sluggish bleeding from her arm and darker blue staining the edges of the new tear in her pants. She won’t bleed out, she doesn’t actually _need_ blood the way humans do, so at least that’s one less way she might die here. With this cheerful thought in mind, she steps out into the sun again and cracks the blunt end of her new tool into the salt crust, drags it a foot to make a very shallow trench.

“I can’t believe that worked!” she says aloud, glancing around as if the mountain or the barren wasteland might congratulate her. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Several hours later she’s glitched six more times, been reduced to crawling on burning, stinging knees, and she swears she can feel the top layers of her nacre loosening and starting to curl—but she’s got a glyph at least a mile wide, not enough to see from orbit but it’s _something_. It’s something, and she can only hope it’s enough.

**—Three Days After: Bismuth—**

No sign. There’s no sign, and no sign, and Bismuth is trying to keep it together because Volley’s been latched onto her arm for three days like that’s the only thing keeping her standing, but. She’s ready to scream, or cry, or smash things, and she’s not sure which one she’ll do when she finally breaks.

Pearl’s been missing for 61 hours when something _pings_ on Rhodonite’s screen. It’s not the first they’ve had. All three of the others were false alarms, but still everyone’s eyes fix on the fusion as she scrutinizes the results.

“This...this could be her,” she says, breathless. “Sufficient concentration of calcium carbonite and traces of hard light activity. This could actually be her!”

“Open all the comms!” Lars commands, leaning forward in his chair. “Coordinates?”

Faces pop up in the corners of the viewscreen, Peridot, Stevonnie, the other Pearls at home on Earth. “RA 124c 41mc 39mmc, Dec. +89° 15′ 51″, planetoid 1DF29!”

“All ships convene at those coordinates, distributing surface grid for scanning,” Yellow replies, and Volley’s grip on Bismuth’s arm tightens.

Peridot whirls from her display, scrambling to the back of the ship; almost out of frame they can see her pull metal out of the wall to grip as she opens the hatch, waving frantically. Moments later Lapis and Amethyst tumble inside. On another screen Stevonnie is crying, their mouth screwed up in a determined grimace. At Bismuth’s side, Garnet has gone stiff, searching—

“I predict we will locate Pearl on a planet covered in salt,” Padparadscha says.

Every eye swivels to her. “It’s...really her?” Bismuth breathes; beside her, Volley grips even tighter.

“Salt?”

On the viewscreen, Yellow blanches. “Rhodonite—”

She shakes her head, fingers flying over the sensor controls. “No. No water there at all. If there was, it’s long gone.”

“What does that mean?” Bismuth asks, trying to follow, but it’s not making a lick of sense and she’s feeling so many things at once she thinks she might explode. “What does that mean?”

“Look!” “A message!” the twins cry, pointing; there, barely visible as they speed toward the planetoid, a glyph carved into the surface. Rhodonite focuses in, as close as their sensors can see.

“What does it say?” Stevonnie asks. Garnet’s hand finds Bismuth’s and squeezes.

“It says, ‘here.’”

**—Three Days After: Volleyball—**

The place they find Pearl is white, so blindingly white it makes her skin crawl, and for a horrifying few moments as she processes what’s happening she’s entirely frozen. Then desperation grips her even harder, and she pulls away from Bismuth and launches herself at the comms. “Lapis! Lapis, I’m headed to the hatch, meet me there, we have to get her _now_!”

A familiar blue face presses into the Roaming Eye’s viewscreen. “Got it,” she says, and then is gone again.

“Wait,” Bismuth says, reaching for her, catching her hand. “Volley, what—what’s happening? What does the water thing mean?”

“Pearls need moisture,” she says, trembling, “she’s drying out, I have to—”

But Bismuth is Bismuth, and when Volley tugs, she lets go immediately.

“I’ll get her!” Volley promises, and dashes off the bridge; moments later when she slams open the hatch and launches herself out, Lapis is there to grab her.

“Tell me what we’re gonna find,” Lapis says, grim, tucking Volley bridal style against her body as they pick up speed.

Volley swallows. “I don’t know. But...Rhodonite said hard light. So she’s still got a form. Some kind of form. That’s good. That’s something.”

Lapis nods; they descend in anxious silence. Then, at last, at the edge of the enormous glyph, flecks of blue against the white.

“There!”

“I see her. Hold on tight.”

They come to a skidding, tumbling, stumbling halt just yards away from her, and then Volley’s running.

**—Three Days After: Pearl—**

She can’t hear the fighting anymore—that must mean the battle is over. She _hopes_ that’s what it means. She _wants_ to get up, assess the damage, find Rose, make new plans. She wants to go back to their camp, and rest somewhere actually comfortable. But she can’t make her legs obey her; she can barely open her eyes.

Rose will be angry with her again. That’s all right. Pearl knows that even if they’re angry tears, Rose will heal the cracks she can feel in her gem, the wounds on her form dragging her closer to dissipating with every passing second. If she can just hold on until then—she’ll get a scolding, but she won’t have to leave Rose unprotected. She’s pared her regenerations down to a day or two now, with practice, but even that feels too long when the war rages with no end in sight. She can’t let down her guard.

Doesn’t make lying in the muck and shards of the battlefield with a crack in her gem _hurt_ any less, though.

_“PEARL!”_

She tries to wave, to find the voice, but she can’t move. All she can do is shudder as she glitches, a rasp of a sound forced out of her throat.

“Pearl!” Rose sobs, behind her, touching her, gathering her up so carefully. “Oh stars, Pearl, I’m here, don’t try to move—”

“Rose,” she says, and it comes out a dry whisper. “I’m fine.”

“I _hate_ it when you say that,” Rose sobs, and the gem in her belly glows bright—Pearl can see it through her eyelids, can feel it on her face.

“What’s happening? Why is her skin—” another voice says, sounding horrified—Garnet?

Rose cradles her head, so gently, brushing her mussed hair away from her gem. “She’s peeling. She’s too dry.” A teardrop plunks onto her eyelid. “ _Stars!_ My hands are shaking, can you—”

“Yeah. But there’s...there’s a bit flaked off.”

“We can look for it after. Just...damage control, Lapis.”

Lapis? Since when do they have a Lapis Lazuli on their side? Something is wrong about this. “Rose…”

“She’s hallucinating—”

“Shh,” Rose tells her, stroking the side of her face. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”

Then, at last, blessed relief; the cool kiss of tears on her gem, slipping down inside, chasing all the little jolts of pain out of her exposed inner layers of nacre as she feels them knitting back together. “Thank...thank you,” she pants, and tests her limbs again; her body still hurts, sharp and urgent, but it’s more bearable without the agony in her head.

“We have to get off this rock, I can feel my wings evaporating,” the strange voice hisses; Rose shifts Pearl delicately in her arms.

“In a second,” Rose shoots back. Then, soft and close, “Can you open your eyes?”

Pearl considers, makes a small, fluttering attempt. “Bright.”

“Here,” says the other voice, and a shadow falls across her face. She opens her eyes.

It’s not Rose, staring down at her, or Garnet. There’s a wash of blue above her— _Oh. Lapis?_ —and a different pink, no less welcome, bending close to her face. “Do you recognize me?” she asks, as if she’s frightened of the answer; Pearl turns her head a fraction to touch their noses together.

“Volleyball.”

Volley lets out a breath on a sob, presses her forehead to Pearl’s gem. “Oh thank the stars...I’ve got you, okay? You need to rest. Let go now, and I’ll see you soon.”

Pearl hums. A rest _does_ sound good. As she considers, a kiss drops onto her peeling lips.

“Go,” Volley tells her.

“Ugh,” sighs Lapis.

Pearl goes.

***

Everything is...normal, inside. The clean white space of her topmost layer, rows of alphabetized objects, and herself, her surface self, endlessly adjusting, dusting, humming idly.

“Oh!” Surface says, spotting her, and sighs in relief. “Thank the stars. It was getting dire in here. And out there too, I’d imagine. But we’re alright?”

Pearl sighs too, and smiles. “Yes. We’re safe.”

“Good,” Surface coos, and reaches out to take her hands. “You rest now, and when you’re ready we’ll work on a new form.”

“I’m fine,” she says, automatic, but she can’t lie to herself—or, she can, but Surface just ignores it. She pulls her over to the filing wall, swipes to the Bs and then the Ps, wraps her up in a blanket and makes a little pillow nest for her to curl up in.

“Here. I’ll stay with you. Just relax. Goodness, twice in just a few days. I hope this isn’t going to be a trend, the Surface before me said you used to be in here every other week. I’m glad those days are over. Things are much nicer in here now that she’s put away with the rest. And now that the damage is taken care of! I mean I’ll need to go through the files and make sure nothing’s missing, or miscategorized, or crooked, but you know, that’s my job, nothing else to do but get to it, and oh isn’t it so _satisfying_ to put something away where it belongs—”

Pearl detaches a little, lets her thoughts float. It’s not quite sleeping—though now that she knows how to sleep, the similarities are clear—but it’s peaceful, restful. She is very, very tired, after all.


	4. Chapter Four

**—Five Weeks Later: Pearl—**

When she drifts back to awareness, minutes or hours or days might have passed; Surface is sitting close beside her, slowly stroking her hair the way Rose used to. The way Volley still does, sometimes. “There you are,” Surface murmurs. “Feeling stronger?”

“Yes,” Pearl says, sitting up and testing her limbs. They obey her; they’re long and pale and whole as they should be, and when she stands her legs hold her weight without a tremor. Surface stands too, looking her over and smiling. Surface is wearing her jacket, her jeans, but Pearl knows she herself is bare and featureless as a mannequin again, clay ready to be reshaped. As though her ordeal has been wiped away completely, only a toothless memory.

“Not completely,” Surface says, reading her thoughts, reaching out to touch Pearl’s gem; Pearl’s hand follows and her fingers find a ridge, smoothed over by healing, around an exposed patch of fresh inner nacre low to one side.

“Oh,” she says, a little stunned. Eleven thousand years of service and war, and _this_ is what chips her?

“I’ll go get the mirror,” Surface says, and squeezes her shoulder before moving away.

It’s not really a mirror. It looks like a shell, among the S files, but it’s actually there under Self Image. Surface brings it over, pale blue and translucent in her hands, and sets it on the floor facing Pearl; it opens, and a Pearl twists up out of it, sliding through each old form before settling as a mannequin like Pearl herself. She lifts her arms, shifts her feet into a ready stance, watching the mirror slowly synchronize until they move at the same time.

Then she stands straight, and regards herself with the seriousness and attention of long practice. Usually regeneration is a chance to mark an inner change, to write emotional shifts onto her body; this time she’s intently aware of her missing patch of nacre, now visible in the mirror’s gem. Still. One doesn’t get to be her age without a few scars, and if one of hers is external now, she’ll just have to take that as it is. This is a moment to reinvent her image, patch included.

The jacket, first of all. It suited her quite well, a true statement piece, but it _was_ impractical sometimes. She holds the color in her mind and molds it into a shirt instead, fitted, three-quarter sleeved, a small yellow star just below the back of the neck. With a swipe of her finger she splits open the neckline and dots four undone buttons into place, casual, attractive, but if she wants to be covered she need only button up. Volleyball will like that; she likes to fiddle, and likes to uncover Pearl’s skin by inches.

She thinks of Volleyball in her arms, tucked up close, her gem warm and bright. Pearl loves to feel it against her skin, loves the way Volley rucks Pearl’s shirt up and _rolls_ against her….

A touch of her hand to her own stomach, and her new shirt shrinks upward, high as the jacket was, leaving exposed skin under her palm. It feels...vulnerable. But it feels inviting, too. Alluring. She’s safe enough now—she’s earned this, hasn’t she? A little peace, a little heat, a little daring.

But maybe a nice high-waisted trouser again. Just to offset things. Tapered, perhaps cuffs this time? Maybe a little less casual than the jeans—pinstripes?

The mirror obliges every thought as it passes across her mind, adjusting the length (cropped just below mid-calf), the cut (tailored, not skin-tight), the color (a deeper blue, almost navy, with delicate purple-gray striping, she’s never tried that before). She brings back her pink flats, studies them on her feet, the appealing gleam of pale bare ankle matching the strip of bare stomach above. She hooks her thumbs in her pockets—pockets!—and turns this way and that as the mirror does the same.

“Something’s missing,” she muses; behind her, Surface hums.

“Oh, how about these?” Pearl turns to find Surface still working in the Ss, pointing at a pair of suspenders. “Very dapper. Bismuth would like that.”

“Bismuth _would_ like that,” Pearl replies, and turns back to the mirror, pink suspenders now buttoned to her trouser waist. She thinks of Bismuth, the strength and openness of her stance, the way her chest puffs when she’s pleased, and tries to do that herself—it looks different on Pearl, proud but maybe a little silly. She considers, thinking of the beautiful musculature of Bismuth’s arms, the strong planes of her back. Maybe Pearl could have a _little_ of that. Gems don’t have muscles, of course, not really, but their bodies move as if they do—no reason not to show a little of her own strength, centuries of work represented by a touch of subtle toning.

Her hair never changes much, but as it forms on the mirror she lets it relax a little, looser, bouncy, like when she was young. She keeps the pale peach color it’s been lately though—wouldn’t do to match Volley too closely. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth, those never change, and she’s as pleased with them as she is any other time.

“What do you think?” Pearl asks, and Surface steps up beside her.

“Handsome,” she says with a nod, “just right,” though her hands tug anxiously at the edges of her jacket. “Will she...be the new Surface?”

Pearl looks at the mirror again, and the mirror looks back. “I don’t think so,” Pearl says. “We had some hard days in your form, but...so many more happy ones. We don’t need to put those away just yet.” When she turns back, Surface is dressed as Pearl is, looking down and admiring herself; a glance at the mirror confirms her other image is gone, the shell closed and dormant again.

“Ready?” Surface asks.

Pearl nods. “Might as well see what they’ve all been up to without me.” She closes her eyes.

“Don’t come back too soon,” Surface says as her body starts to dissipate. “But Steven’s welcome anytime!”

***

When her light body reforms and she opens her eyes, she finds herself standing in the middle of the beach house, bright with late morning light. Home, at last. She allows herself a blissful sigh.

“Aw, yes!” Amethyst shouts from the couch behind her. “I win the betting pool.”

Pearl turns, hands on her hips, but she can’t resist a smile. “There was a betting pool?”

Amethyst grins back, wide and bright. “Just me and Lapis. But she thought you’d take even longer.” She gets up, vaulting unnecessarily over the coffee table.

“And you didn’t think so?”

“Naw,” she says, looking Pearl up and down, “I know how tough you are.” Then she wraps her arms tight around Pearl’s waist, presses her face into Pearl’s side, wet against the slip of midriff Pearl now has bared.

“Well,” she says gently, resting a hand in the wild mop of hair clinging onto her, “You were right. I’m just fine now.” Amethyst just squeezes her tighter; it’s a long moment before she eases up. “How long was I gone?”

“More’n a month,” Amethyst replies, pulling back to look up at her. “We were kinda starting to worry. I gotta text everybody, you ready to be mobbed?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

Reluctantly Amethyst pulls away entirely—or, almost entirely, her shoulder is still pressed companionably to Pearl’s side—and shoots off a message on her phone. Then she looks up again, and grins. “Nice form, by the way. Like, dang. The scar is a Look.”

“Oh,” she says, feeling her smile go awkward, and touches her gem. “That’s good I suppose.”

“Naw, this,” Amethyst corrects with a shake of her head, reaching up. When Pearl doesn’t stop her she traces a rough oval on her skin, jaw to collarbone and back. “You’re even paler here. It’s cool. All the chicks are gonna dig it.”

The sincerity of it startles a laugh out of her. “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

“Wingman forevah,” Amethyst replies, and holds out her phone for a selfie; when Pearl tips her head a little to see the patch on her skin for herself, Amethyst snaps the shot and grins. “New background, nice.”

Then the warp sounds, and any other thoughts are shoved from her head as Volley careens into her, covering her face and her gem with frantic kisses. “Oh stars oh stars Pearl—”

“Hey, hey,” she soothes, pulling her close, rubbing their noses softly together. “It’s all right.” Volley nods, mouth wobbling, looking her over, and abruptly buries her face in Pearl’s shoulder to sob. “Shh, I’m sorry. It’s over now.”

“Not your fault,” says Bismuth, stepping down from the warp pad with eyes suspiciously wet. “ _Real_ glad you’re back in one piece though.” Pearl smiles softly and reaches for her, and then she and Volley both are wrapped up in strong arms and the hot steel scent of the forge. “Missed you, baby.”

When Pearl lifts her face for a kiss, she’s gently obliged, and she leans into Bismuth’s hold with a sigh as Volley’s crying slowly eases. “I missed you too. I’m happy to be home.”

Bismuth grins, her biggest, widest one, like all is right in the world again, and then she glances out the door and chuckles. “Oop, here comes the meatball. C’mere, sweet pea, let Pearl get all her hugs in.”

“Steven’s here?” Pearl asks, warmed, as Volley lets herself be transferred from Pearl’s arms to Bismuth’s; she gets her answer when the screen door slams open.

“Pearl!”

“Steven,” she says with a grin, opening her arms, and he falls into them. “I hope I haven’t been keeping you from your trip all this time!”

“Um…” he says into her shoulder, “I’ve kinda been sleeping on the couch? And Connie should be here soon, she comes every day for lunch to check in.”

The thought makes her throat tighten, and she presses her face into Steven’s curls. “You didn’t have to do that. Either of you.”

“Yeah we did,” he says, then pulls back a little to look at her. “I promise I’ll get back to the trip, I just...it didn’t seem right. But I left the Dondai in long-term parking in Wyobrado, so.”

“Well,” she says, stroking his hair out of his face, “I’m very glad to see you. Your hair’s getting so long! Is that on purpose, or do you want me to cut it for you?”

“ _Pearl_ ,” he groans, dropping his forehead back on her shoulder as Amethyst cackles.

“I win _that_ bet too! Lapis owes me mad snacks!”

When the warp sounds again, chaos descends—suddenly the quiet house becomes a party, people crowding around in a happy scrum. Garnet squeezes her shoulder, visor gone so she can wipe her eyes; Blue and Yellow touch noses with her in gentle welcome; Peridot throws her arms around Pearl’s legs and mumbles something unintelligible. “I can’t hear you,” she says, laying an uncertain hand on Peridot’s hair.

She throws her face back to wail at the ceiling instead. “I’m sorry I called you somebody’s shiny toy four years ago!” Lapis, standing just out of arm’s reach, rolls her eyes.

Pearl bites back a laugh, and pats Peridot’s head. “I forgive you.”

“Thank the stars,” Peridot sighs, and retreats again as if a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders; the space is immediately taken by Volley, who nestles in all along her side again with her own quiet sigh.

Then the front door slams open once more. “Welcome back, Pearl!” Greg shouts over the festive chatter. “I brought pizza! And Lion brought Connie!”

“Lemme help you, Dad,” Steven says, peeling off, as Connie slips through the door behind him and wedges close enough to hug.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says, quiet and serious, and Pearl smiles again.

“Me too. How’s school?”

“Pretty busy,” she admits with a crooked smile, “but my student activities application got accepted, I’m starting a swordplay club! I have six students signed up already!”

‘Goodness, that’s quite a number to take on. Maybe a little later we can sneak away and talk about training methods for beginner groups,” Pearl suggests, as Volley’s hands tighten minutely around her arm.

“I’d appreciate it,” Connie replies. “Bismuth’s already started making me some training blades, too.”

“Oh has she?” Pearl asks, turning to find Bismuth towering over the group. Bismuth laughs, and holds up her hands in surrender.

“They’re nice and blunt, I promise.”

“All right,” Pearl concedes, and gives Connie another squeeze. “Go on and get some pizza, we’ll talk details later.”

“Thanks, Pearl.”

“...yes, just a few minutes ago. Here she is.” Garnet’s hand, phone held out, appears in front of her. “Say hello to the Off-Colors,” she says over Pearl’s shoulder. “We wouldn’t’ve found you without them.”

“Oh!” Pearl says, picking out Lars and his crew on the tiny screen. “Hello, everyone! Thank you so much. I don’t know how long I could have held out.”

 _“Hey, anytime,”_ Lars says, and Rhodonite waves.

_“We’re just glad you’re okay. Say hi to everyone there for us!”_

“I will!”

 _“I predict that Pearl will reform—today!”_ Padparadscha exclaims; Garnet chuckles and pulls the phone away again.

Bismuth’s arms come back around her and Volley as the gathering shifts to the kitchen and chatter over the pizza; Pearl leans into her with a contented sound. “I guess I should send an apology message to Baroque Beach,” she muses, “I wonder if they’d let me reschedule?”

“Oh, they definitely want you back,” Bismuth assures her. “I’ve been sending updates. There’s a guard there, Tiny? She’s a riot. Said she’d get someone to set up a video feed in the lobby so me and whoever else could come watch you speak.”

Volley nods against her shoulder. “They were very kind to me, too.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Pearl says, nuzzling her hair. “Maybe when things die down here, we can pop over to the comm station and set something up.”

“Plenty of Gems over there who’ll be happy to see you back,” Bismuth says. “We’ve been trying to fill in, but classes aren’t the same without you.”

“Ah. Human Tech?”

“Peri.”

“Oh dear.”

“Steven helped her.”

“Good. And weapons class?”

Bismuth grins. “Me ‘n Garnet.”

Pearl laughs. “Do I even have any students left, or did you pound them all into the ground?”

“Nah, we left the tough stuff for you.”

“It’s nice to watch,” Volley says, soft, “but not as nice as watching you.”

Pearl just has to kiss her, after that.

[ ](https://outerspace-iiinnerspace.tumblr.com/)

***

Much later, when the sun has disappeared and the humans have gone off to bed, Pearl retreats with Bismuth and Volley to her room, and the nest Bismuth made her. It’s quiet, cozy, surrounded by the fresh water of her fountains. She’s been missing the comfort of her own space; in her absence, clearly Bis and Volley have too.

“Ahh,” Bismuth sighs, pushing the lacy netting aside and sinking into the fluffy bowl of the cushion, arms and knees comfortably spread. “C’mere, you two.”

Pearl snuggles in gratefully against her side and Volley follows close after, wriggling up tight against Pearl’s front. Unlike Bismuth’s happy sprawl, Volley’s tense in her lap, and still quiet; Pearl kisses her uncertain mouth in a gentle question.

Volley presses her forehead to Pearl’s gem in answer, closing her eye and breathing out slow. “I was so scared,” she says in a wisp of a voice. “Are you really okay?”

Pearl strokes a long arc up and down her back, gentle. “I really am. I can’t say it was a pleasant experience, but...it’s over.” Volley nods, tight and small. “Are _you_ okay?”

“I don’t know,” she says, frustrated now; her hands curl protectively around the back of Pearl’s head, thumbs stroking her skin. With eye still closed she nuzzles her face along Pearl’s until lips reach her gem, feeling out the damaged patch, the smoothed-over edges marking out the missing piece. “We _looked_ ,” she says against the spot, a small, hurt sound, and kisses it.

“It’s all right,” Pearl tells her, but she’s absorbed now, kissing every millimeter with agitated care. Volley’s gem is warming between them; her back flexes concave, finding the skin Pearl left bare for her and snugging up into it.

“Pearl,” she says, anguished. It’s an awful sound; gently, Pearl kisses her trembling throat, her tense shoulder.

“I’m here. I’m here with you. Tell me what you need.”

“You,” Volley replies, finding Pearl’s mouth again to kiss her, hot and fierce. “I want to hold you so tight we fuse. I want to tuck you safe inside my gem forever. I want this,” she says, sliding her hand down between them to tug at the fly of Pearl’s new trousers. “Stars, you look— I want to swallow you whole.”

Pearl hears, feels, Bismuth take in a slow, steadying breath; she does the same, then catches Volley’s mouth again, letting her body slide into something else beneath her clothes. Volley makes a choked-off little sound and then she’s glowing, as though Pearl passed it to her, hand between them searching. Once she settles, she shakes her head at what she finds. “The other one,” she says, panting, and Pearl pulls back in surprise.

“This one?” she asks, trying again.

Volley wraps a hand around her, feeling out the shape, and nods. “Is...is that okay?”

“I don’t mind,” Pearl assures, her gem already warming; Volley kisses her again almost before the words are out, rolling her hips into Pearl’s with a wanting little sound. Carefully Pearl curls her hands around the backs of Volley’s splayed thighs, keeping her close. “Good?” Volley moans in answer, sharp in the quiet space. Every movement of her body is urgent and anxious, and Pearl rubs their noses lightly together to soothe her. “Easy, easy…”

“I want you inside,” Volley pleads against her cheek. “Just...like this. Please. I want…”

“I hear you.” Gently, gently. “But there’s no rush. Talk to me. Just a little more.”

Volley huffs a frustrated breath. “I don’t...I want...I want to be _attached_. But I want you to be _you_ and me to be _me_ and I was _scared_ and I want to feel you, please, Pearl, I don’t know how to explain—”

“Oh,” Pearl says softly, pressing kisses along Volley’s hairline. “Okay. Okay. I’m just trying to...do you…” Lightly Pearl traces her thumbs along the seam where Volley’s bottoms meet tights. “Do you want to take these off, at least?”

Hesitantly, Volley shakes her head. Then she hides her face, flushed and warm, against Pearl’s neck. “Rip it.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bismuth breathes, radiating deferential attention in Pearl’s periphery. Pearl swallows, heat spilling down her chest; with measured strength she tears the gusset out of Volley’s clothes in a neat stripe. With a pained groan Volley presses down into her hand, lets Pearl stroke her soft and light before she wriggles with impatience.

“Come on,” she begs, warmer, some of the anxiety gone from her tone; Pearl wraps both hands around Volley’s hips, has to tip her head back onto Bismuth’s arm as Volley takes her in hand, slides herself, slick and hot, along the slim cock Pearl’s made arcing out the open placket of her trousers. Eagerly Volley shifts her weight, repositions, finds a way she likes and eases herself down onto Pearl with a fluttering moan.

“Slow,” Pearl rasps, gripping her carefully, and now that Volley’s got a taste of what she wants the tension flows out of her. She kisses Pearl’s gem as she rocks her way down in tiny, tantalizing increments, kisses her nose, kisses her mouth as they settle together.

“I can feel your pulse,” Volley says, smearing the words along Pearl’s jawline. “I love it when you have a pulse.”

“Have to have...proper blood flow,” Pearl replies, pleasantly overwhelmed as Volley’s mouth traces down her throat.

Traces over the ragged outline of her new scar, so tenderly it makes Pearl’s eyes sting. “I hate what happened,” Volley murmurs there, calm and quiet, “but I love that we match.” Then her kisses venture further, into the open neck of Pearl’s shirt, and slowly she rises and sinks again like the lazy motion of a carousel.

Pearl breathes out a hungry sound, gathers Volley closer, arching into her hips and the heat of her gem; it’s so _good_ , to be home and safe and held, weighed down under Volley’s body as she moves, wedged close against Bismuth’s. Pleasure suffuses her limbs slow and sticky, and she lets it rise. In her lap, Volley finds her own pace, panting little affirmations, and _stars_ does it do things to Pearl when she takes what she wants. Her hands curl around Pearl’s back, scrabbling up under her shirt to press into her skin, and she muffles a groan in Pearl’s shoulder. “You feel so _good_.”

“I love you,” Pearl tells her in reply, curling a hand around the back of her neck, the other around one straining thigh. Volley whines, the eager pace of her hips going clumsy.

Then she pulls back, flushed pink and staring at Pearl like she’s the last morsel at the feast. “I love _you_. So m—mmh—oh, that’s—” Her head tips back slow as she works herself in Pearl’s lap, then her _body_ tips back, bracing herself with her hands on Pearl’s knees. “ _Oh_.”

 _Oh_. She’s a sight, this way, eye fluttering closed as she tests out the new angle, her torso one long tempting curve that Pearl just has to follow, sliding her hands up and up, under Volley’s top to knead her chest in both palms.

“Pearl—” She chews at her lip. “Pearl—”

“Tell me,” Pearl urges, rumbly-low.

Volley looks at her, face flushed pink. “Fuck me. Like this. Just like this.”

It’s so incongruous, coming out of her mouth all sweetness and pleading; Pearl can hear Bismuth suck in a breath, can feel her own gem surge brighter. Her feet scrabble for footing to brace against, and she does as she’s asked.

“Oh _stars_ yes, Pearl, _yes_ —”

Pearl’s hands stroke down in steadying tracks, over her sides, her belly, her gem so bright the edges blur; they settle back around her hips as Pearl bucks up into her smooth and rolling. “Volley—”

“That’s it,” she breathes, shifting her weight; then one hand comes around to slide down over her gem, between her legs. “ _Ooh…_ ”

“You’re incredible,” Pearl says, with all the reverence and want swirling together in her chest; Volley shudders.

“ _Pearl..!”_

“Let me see it. I love to watch you fall apart.”

Volley’s hand grips her knee _hard_ , the other fluttering urgently between her straining thighs; she tips her head back, a tremulous cry rising from the long column of her throat. “ _Yes_ ,” she sobs, a few overwhelmed tears squeezing out from beneath her eyelid— then her body jerks and her gem goes off like a flash bulb, and Pearl squeezes her eyes shut to ride it out as Volley’s body clenches around her in long tidal pulls.

Together they tremble through the slow descent, Volley breathing hard above her, eye closed, one trembly hand roaming with soft moth-touches of her fingertips, finding out the shape of herself gently stretched around Pearl’s cock, stroking the skin of Pearl’s stomach and peachy curls of hair, like she was in too much of a hurry to take in these details before. Every touch lights Pearl’s skin on fire, but she stills, lets Volley slowly shift and relax and absorb as she likes. Pearl can’t help but touch her too, stroking the bare skin of her waist, sensitive around her gem, watching her until she takes in a deep breath and looks down.

“You’re really here,” she says, slow and warm and spent, and curls forward again to drape herself against Pearl’s chest. “I love you.” Then she turns her head, smiling against Pearl’s shoulder. “I love you too,” she says to Bismuth.

“Sweet pea,” Bismuth murmurs, and when Pearl twists a little to look she’s bending to kiss Volley’s forehead. She kisses Pearl’s too, then leans back to regard them; she’s entirely naked, _when did that happen?_ , her gem shining between nipples dark as bruises, her finger idly tracing its edges.

“You look like you’re having ideas,” Pearl teases, tipping her face up; Bismuth takes the bait and kisses her mouth with a rumbly hum.

“A few.” When she pulls away, she makes a show of looking Pearl up and down, particularly _down_ , where Volley is still rocking, minutely, in her lap. “I wouldn’t mind a good seeing-to with that, when you’ve got your breath back.”

A pleased little laugh bursts out of Pearl’s chest like a bubble. “What’s gotten into you two? Though I can’t say I mind.”

“It’s the new form,” Bismuth says, flushing dark across her cheeks. “You look _powerful_ , Pearl, and you know I always want a taste of that.”

Pearl feels her face heat with a matching blush. “Well. What parts we’re using have nothing to do with that.”

“Not in the least,” Bismuth agrees, leaning in to kiss her again, slower, beckoning, “you know any body you have is a body I wanna get wrecked by. But Volley’s really making a strong recommendation for the one you’ve got right _now_.”

Tucked against Pearl’s front, Volley gives a pleased hum of agreement. “‘S nice,” she murmurs, shifting her weight and sending little zings up and down Pearl’s spine with the tiny bit of friction.

“You’ll have to give up your cozy spot then,” Pearl murmurs into Volley’s hair. “But look at all that nice bare skin Bismuth has on offer.”

With another hum Volley shifts again, stretches herself upright and pulls her top off over her head in one lazy stretch; then she _squeezes_ her body around Pearl with a tiny, wicked smile and rises to her knees, crawls over to plaster herself against Bismuth’s other side. “Warm.”

“You are, aren’t you,” Pearl says, low, settling between Bismuth’s sprawled thighs, tracing the tender skin along the insides with her fingertips. “I love how worked up you get, watching us.”

“One of the best views on Earth or any other planet,” Bismuth says with a pleased smile, and her knees tip a little wider. It’s an invitation, but Pearl resists the call. It’s not as often she gets to have Bismuth like this, human parts and human pleasure, and she suddenly wants to take her time in taking her apart.

So she absorbs the terrain with a hot, liquid look, the firm geography of Bismuth’s shape, her warm face and broad chest and the blush that graces both, the soft planes of her breasts, her thick waist and beautiful, squeezable paunch of belly over hardened steel strength. And lower still, between tree-trunk thighs Pearl has the insane urge to _bite_ , a charmingly practical assemblage of sensitive, protected skin beneath a riotous rainbow of pubic hair. She looks so enormous with Volley draped along her side, arm across her body and knee curled up along her thigh, and yet she’s still, just breathing, waiting, watching. Every inch of her makes Pearl’s chest tighten, and the pinned look on her face draws Pearl in, magnetized, for a kiss. “You’ll tell me if you want something different,” she says, the faintest wisp of a command; Bismuth nods quick and sharp, ever a good soldier, but her eager hand sweeping along Pearl’s arm betrays her.

“I want anything you’ll give,” she admits, and when Pearl kisses her again, delving deep into the scorching heat of her mouth, she shivers.

The taste of her is intoxicating, but Pearl’s stretched taut against her body to reach and the press of warm skin against her cock is a sharp reminder of what other pleasures she can find; with assiduous attention she traces kisses down the side of Bismuth’s neck, over her firm shoulder, teasing the line of her collarbone. Volley watches her, eye half-lidded and face pink, so Pearl gives her another soft kiss too before turning her attention to the shining facets of Bismuth’s gem. Gentle, she kisses its corners, lets her mouth drag along its edges, tastes a step down and then the next with her tongue. Beneath her Bismuth groans, heaves in a breath, and Pearl soothes her with slow swipes of her hands up and down her arching torso. “You’re incredible,” she murmurs, tucking the words into the tender, innermost facets, and Bismuth’s hand lands restless and gentle on her back.

“I missed you,” Bismuth says, voice thick with more words she doesn’t voice; softly Pearl curls to touch her heated gem to the skin of Bismuth’s chest.

“I love you.”

Bismuth breathes out in a long whoosh, and her hand curls around the back of Pearls head, fingers playing through her hair. “I love you too.”

“I love you both!” Volley adds, and Pearl is very pleasantly jostled as Bismuth guffaws.

Grinning, loose and eager, Pearl turns her attention to one dark nipple, tracing the edge of the wide areola with her tongue. When she closes her mouth over it Bismuth groans again, her head flexing backward in Pearl’s periphery. “Mmm, that is _nice_ , I forgot…”

It’s tempting to bite—Bismuth does like a little rough treatment, sometimes—but tonight’s not the moment for it. After everything they’ve been through, she deserves sweetness, and Pearl gives it to her with slow, pulsing suction and the roll of her tongue like a promise. From the way Bismuth’s hips twitch, she’s feeling it _just_ as Pearl wants her to.

Then restless _want_ takes her and Pearl travels downward, leaving lines of searing kisses to mark her passing, traversing her waist, her belly, hooking her knee over Pearl’s shoulder to kiss along the inside of her thigh. With her face pressed there Pearl can feel a shudder ripple under Bismuth’s skin; a sly look tells her that Volley has taken up where she left off, rolling a firm nipple under her thumb, her face laid so close to Bismuth’s gem that her soft breaths puff across its surfaces. Bismuth’s arm curls around Volley, cupping her backside in one palm. She looks blissful and pained at once, spread open, Pearl pressing one leg up as she leans in closer and Volley straddling the other with heated intention.

She’s an inspiring sight. At last Pearl tucks their hips together, pressing close, letting Bismuth feel how hard she is, making sure she still wants it. She needn’t have worried. “ _Yeah_ ,” Bismuth breathes, her mouth dropping open; her eyes find Pearl’s, intense, and the look sends a shot of arousal straight down between her legs. Neither of them look away as Pearl positions, adjusts, presses home in a long, liquid slide.

“Good?” Pearl asks, a sigh, and Bismuth nods, watching, biting at the corner of her lip. Pearl leans in, levering her leg higher. “More?” Bis nods again, quick and sharp; Pearl focuses, starts to glow, adds a little girth that she gauges by the widening of Bismuth’s eyes.

“There, right there,” Bismuth hisses, finally breaks their gaze to arc her head back. “ _Stars_.”

Pearl strokes her belly, the bowl of her hips, letting her adjust with a gentle back-and-forth sway. Pearl takes her time. There’s plenty of time, and Bismuth’s hot and humid as the forge inside, so good Pearl could melt. She’s sure her own face and chest are flushed blue as a summer sky and Volley is cherry-blossom-pink, her gem brightening again. Pearl wants to capture this moment in her memory, to keep the fevered twining of their three bodies in the quiet night, tuck it away in her gem to bring out again the next time she’s alone, frightened, in pain. A mouthful of water in an endless salt-flat.

“You okay, baby?” Bismuth murmurs; a hand cups her face, thumbs a wet spill from her cheek.

“Just fine,” she says, though more tears spill over when she speaks. Bismuth wipes those away too, and her touch slides down Pearl’s throat, over the new scar and into the open neck of her shirt.

“You’re so beautiful,” Bismuth murmurs, drawing her suspenders down off one shoulder. “Gimme a little more.” A soft sound falls out of her as Pearl obliges, finding a pace that pulses through her like a heartbeat. Bismuth’s hand slides up her stomach, up under the cropped shirt, covers her whole chest in the heat of one palm. “That’s it.”

“Bismuth,” she says, and it comes out a panting breath; her hips stutter and her gem washes them in its glow.

Bismuth’s fingers curl up under Pearl’s open neckline. “Can I—”

“Anything,” she says immediately. Bis huffs a laugh, then _tugs_ , tearing her shirt straight down the middle. The torn edges flap like wings as she moves, and she shivers at the cool touch of air on her skin.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Volley says, small and shocked, and then she’s quaking in Bismuth’s hold as her gem flicker-flashes. “Oh. Stars. Mmm...” Pearl strokes her thigh where it’s draped over Bismuth’s as she twitches through little pops of pleasure and Bismuth, bemused, strokes her mussed hair.

“Liked that, huh?”

“You’re both so strong,” she whines into Bismuth’s chest. That makes Bis laugh, and when she laughs her body _clenches_ around Pearl.

Pearl dips her head down to moan, helpless; she’s losing sense of any rhythm, just action-pleasure-reaction, her body seeking of its own accord. Bismuth’s hand covers her bare chest again, trails up her neck and into her hair. “Come on, baby,” she urges. Her thumb, calloused and sure, circles over Pearl’s gem. “Lemme feel it.”

“ _Bismuth_ —” The words, the touch, they rocket her toward the edge; her fingers scrabble and clench where they land, her eyes squeeze shut and she shouts as she tips over, falling, _falling_ , her gem pulsing white-hot light—

She regains control of her body in pieces—her hips, still moving jerkily; her voice, the harsh panting of breath across vocal cords; her hands, one closed tight around Volley’s thigh, the other clutching Bismuth’s; her eyes, dragging open to find Bismuth arching, mouth spilling soft, urgent sounds, with Volley’s fingers rolling swift between her legs.

No. “Not yet,” Pearl rasps, and Volley pauses, eye fixing on her, “don’t come yet. I want to taste you.”

“Fucking _stars_ , Pearl,” Bismuth groans, but it’s a pleased sound, hungry, more than ready; Volley just grins at her, soft and sideways, and traces a winding track up Bismuth’s body to her gem.

Pearl breathes, watching, _feeling_ , and when she’s ready she slips carefully out, hooks Bismuth’s other leg over her arm, and tugs her hips up to meet Pearl’s mouth. A shocked little whine squeezes out of Bismuth’s throat; her hands grab at the edge of the nest above her head, and clench tight.

“ _So_ strong,” Volley sighs dreamily, and traces the edges of Bismuth’s gem with a fingertip.

Satisfied, Pearl dives in—bold, precise, matching every flicker of Bismuth’s expression and watching the tightening of muscles under her skin. “Pearl,” Bismuth moans, her head tilting back and forth, “you’re...so... _mmmhn_ right th— don’t stop baby don’t stop…”

Pearl hums and works her ‘til her jaw aches, ‘til Bismuth’s heels are drumming urgent into her back, and when Volley leans in to softly trace her tongue around Bismuth’s brightening gem she arches hard and shouts out her pleasure in blissful nonsense syllables.

Together, slow, they bring her down with soothing kisses; when her thighs have stopped jumping Pearl eases her back into the soft embrace of the nest, stretches herself along the length of Bismuth’s slack body to kiss the corner of her mouth.

“That’s what I call a seeing-to,” Bismuth sighs, bleary; her eyes are closed, but her arms come around them as Volley wriggles close enough that she and Pearl are touching all along their limbs.

She doesn’t mean to fall asleep. She wants to watch them, her lovers, satisfied and quiet under her, in her own nest, in her own room. But at some point she realizes she can’t see them anymore because her eyes have drifted shut, and then the ambient sound of the fountains starts to fade, and she wonders if maybe she should set an alarm? But she’s asleep before she can do more than think it.


	5. Chapter Five - Epilogue

**—Six Weeks Later: Volleyball—**

“Oh, we’re going to be late—”

“We’re not going to be late,” Volley says, at the same as Amethyst says,

“You’re already six weeks late, what’s a few minutes going to matter?”

Pearl shoots Amethyst a _look_ , then reaches for Volley’s hand. “Maybe we should just go on our own. This is silly. It won’t happen again. The odds are so astronomical I can’t even calculate them.”

“I’ve already calculated the odds, it’s a one in 1.5381379 times 10 to the 25th chance.”

“Not helping, short stuff,” Bismuth says, her hand falling heavy on the top of Peridot’s head. “Pearl, it would make everybody feel better if you’d just wait for Steven, even though we all know nothing’s gonna happen. Doesn’t matter if it’s silly, and the pearls at Baroque Beach aren’t gonna fault you for taking precautions.”

Peridot holds out her tablet hopefully. “I also traced the warp route using Diamond Broadcasting satellites, the path is clear of obstructions. See?”

Pearl bends to look, scrolling through three-dimensional diagrams with a finger. “It does look clear. Thank you, Peridot.” Then she turns to look at Volley, her hand rubbing unconsciously at her scar. “What do you think?”

Volley laces their fingers together. Warping has gotten easier. Short distances, places she knows, places on Earth. This is different—this is a galaxy warp, from the pad under the dome at the beach house, across open space. She hasn’t warped off-planet since Bismuth brought her back from the Reef; when she sleeps, she still hears the sound of the impact in her dreams. Right now, even being in a bubble with Steven seems like a better option.

She squeezes Pearl’s hand. “Let’s wait.”

Pearl lets out a slow breath, nods. “Okay.” Then she looks over at Garnet, her expression a question Volley can’t quite read. Garnet can, though; she pauses, then holds up five fingers, tips her head as she silently counts them down. On one she points at the door, as a shadow hurries up from outside and throws it open.

“I’m here! Sorry I’m late,” Steven huffs, his hair windswept and messy.

“You’re not late,” Pearl lies as he throws his arms around her waist; she smoothes his curls, just a little.

“Ready?” he asks, and she smiles and nods. Then he turns and looks at Volleyball, his smile a little softer, careful. “Ready?”

Volley looks at Bismuth, who blows her a kiss; at Pearl, who’s holding her hand tight; at Steven, who seems so much calmer than he used to. “Ready, Freddie.”

Steven grins, stepping up onto the warp. “Have you been hanging out with Lapis?”

“She helps me water the plants in the greenhouse sometimes.”

Pearl draws her up onto the warp pad, tugs her in close. Steven holds out his arms, and a bubble forms around them, so thick it makes everyone outside look a little blurred. Pearl waves, some of the tension leaving her frame. “See you after the talk!”

“You’re gonna do great!” Bismuth calls back, and then they’re floating, on their way in the shining warp stream.

Volley breathes. She keeps her eyes open, tries to focus, even a _little_ , as Pearl and Steven chat. Keeps Pearl’s hand clutched in hers, and doesn’t let go again until they’ve touched down in the Reef and the bubble flows back into Steven like water.

“Goodness, it’s so busy,” Pearl says first, looking around the bustling lobby; she steps down from the pad and Volley follows after her, watching all the pearls passing through trying not to be obvious when they turn to look. If Pearl notices, it doesn’t seem to faze her; instead she turns back to Steven. “You’re going home until it’s time?”

“Yeah, I’ll come back with the others a little later.”

“Use a bubble, okay? I don’t love the idea of you going back by yourself.”

“I’m gonna be fine, Pearl,” he says, _mostly_ with patience, and lets her kiss his forehead.

“All right. See you later.”

“Bye. Bye Volley!” Then he makes another bubble, smaller, just for him, and is gone.

“Stars,” Pearl sighs, leaning into Volley’s side. “I thought I was getting _better_ about him being on his own now.”

“It’s okay to worry,” Volley assures her, soft. “Come on, let’s get you to your mic check.”

**—Six Weeks Later: Bismuth—**

Everything is fine.

Everything is fine when Steven comes back, happy and calm. Pearl and Volley are at Baroque Beach, he tells them, getting ready for Pearl’s talk.

Everything is fine for an hour while Bismuth tries not to pace, tries to keep herself occupied, present, as conversation happens around her in the house. Steven and Amethyst make lunch; Lion wanders away and comes back with Connie; Connie and Steven and Amethyst _eat_ lunch, and Amethyst eats some other things besides. Everyone’s a little nervous, if Bismuth is reading the room right. Even Garnet. But everything’s fine.

They warp to the Reef, and nothing happens except that they arrive at the Reef. The lobby is nearly empty when they land on the pad, except for a huge video screen set up at one end of the room, a bare stage and a microphone projected on it, and a row of folding chairs.

“Bismuth!”

And, of course, Tiny. “Hey, friend! Good to see you in better circumstances.”

Tiny claps her hand to Bismuth’s shoulder with a grin. “Same. I’m really glad the Renegade’s back in action. And _here!_ Everybody’s all worked up about a celebrity in our midst.” Then she takes in the others, and her eyes land on Steven. “Two celebrities!” she amends, and holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Steven Universe. The Renegade told us we were worth something, but you’re the one who told us we were free.”

Steven blushes pink and smiles, awkward, but when he says “Nice to meet you too!” he sounds like he means it.

Introductions are made all around, and the non-pearl audience—Bismuth, Steven, Connie, Garnet, Amethyst, and Peridot—settle in to wait. Amethyst passes Steven and Connie a bag of popcorn; Peridot tries to take a selfie of the whole row of them, discovers her arms are too short, and levitates her phone instead. ”For Lapis,” she says, “I think she wanted to come, but she still struggles with displays of emotional vulnerability.”

“She hates mushy stuff,” Bismuth translates for Tiny, who’s sitting at the end of the row with an eye on the screen and an eye on the rotating security feeds on a tablet in her hand.

“Is this gonna be a mushy talk? I’m a crier,” Tiny admits; Steven, on Bismuth’s other side, leans around her to smile.

“That’s okay. Me and Bismuth are too.”

“Speak for yourself, meatball,” Bismuth tells him, ruffling his hair, “but it’s true, Pearl can get me going.”

“And romantic movies, and especially pretty sunsets, and—”

“Okay, okay.”

“Sh, it’s starting,” Connie interrupts, gesturing at the screen, where a willowy green pearl with a long braid and her gem in her throat steps up to the microphone.

_“Hello, everyone. As the Director of the Baroque Beach Programming Committee, I’d like to welcome you to today’s lecture. In this room, our speaker needs no introduction—every pearl here knows who she is. I’ll just say that I’m very glad and grateful she’s here today after something of a harrowing adventure, and that she’s brought family from Earth here in the audience and joining us in the lobby. Thank you all for your attention, and please join me in welcoming the Renegade.”_

A raucous wave of applause follows as Pearl takes the stage, and Bismuth can see her slipping on the Terrifying Renegade even as she’s stepping up to pull the microphone off the stand; she’s nervous underneath, but that’s never stopped her a day in her life, and it won’t stop her now.

_“Good afternoon,”_ she says, looking out over the crowd; her gaze lands on someone in the front row—must be Volley—and she smiles. _“Thank you all for the warm welcome. I’m Pearl, and many of you know me as the Renegade. I’m here to tell you that each and every one of you is worthy of respect.”_ Pearl’s eyes rake over the audience, taking in every face, every shape and color and variation she finds. _“Each and everyone of you are deserving of love.”_

Bismuth has read the speech a few times, heard Pearl practice it a few more. She lets it float over her a little, just watching Pearl, the way she moves back and forth across the stage, the way she makes eye contact, the way she’s left the neck of her shirt unbuttoned to show the scar, though a paler patch on already pale skin doesn’t really show up on video. How her hands move, gesture, float tiny signs as she speaks; how the nerves drain away and something like the old Pearl, who expected to be listened to when she spoke because she’d _earned_ that much by blood and tears and blade, suffuses her form.

_“...matter how it functions or what it looks like, your form supports you. It enables you to interact with the world, and with others; it enables you to feel pleasure and pain, to bring others joy and show them yours. No matter how it’s shaped, your gem contains you, gives your consciousness a home, shelters your thoughts and dreams and feelings. Love your gem, and love your form—they work hard for you.”_

Beside her, Tiny sniffles and wipes at her eyes; Bismuth leans into her shoulder with a little smile.

_“But I can’t actually tell you_ how _to love yourself, to value yourself, because every pearl is unique. There are as many ways to be a pearl as there are grains of sand on the beach. I can tell you what I did. I didn’t like being silent, so I started to speak. I kept speaking, with my voice and my hands and my whole body, until somebody finally listened. I didn’t like being a pretty accessory, so I stopped caring what anyone else thought of my form. I knew, inside, that I was a whole Gem, a thinking, feeling person, and I showed that person to the world in order to find people who would love her, instead of changing that person to suit what the world was telling me it loved._

_“I didn’t like being passive, I didn’t like feeling weak, so I learned to fight for what I wanted. But that was just what_ I _wanted. Another pearl might like to be quiet and peaceful, or loud and funny, or delicate, or strong. Any pearl might be any way at all. I might be the only one who fought an outward rebellion. But every pearl can fight internal ones, just by doing what they love to do, being how they want to be. Who you want to be has value, just by virtue of being_ you _. You don’t have to fit into the role you were made for—you can pick and choose the parts you like, and leave the parts you don’t like behind you. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. The way you choose to look and act, the way you choose to be, the way you_ choose _, those are the things that make you unique, and valuable, and deserving of love.”_

Pearl pauses, looks around the room; Bismuth looks down the row at the others, all watching rapt, Steven with tears rolling down his cheeks.

_“Look at where we are. The place each one of us was made, from a tiny speck of sand, intended for a life of servitude. But here we are now, every one of us free. It’s everything I ever wanted,”_ she says, softening from the rhythm of rhetoric into something quiet and personal, _“more than I ever dreamed we could have. Remember that, on the darkest days. We won the war. We win it every day, just living, being together, loving each other. That’s all I can really tell you—live. Be. See what you’re really capable of. That’s how we win.”_ She pauses again, a moment of silence so intense Bismuth thinks she can hear the humans’ heartbeats, and then she smiles. _“Thank you.”_

The crowd erupts again, leaping to their feet; Bismuth sighs, scrubs the heels of her hands into her stinging eyes. “One of these days,” she murmurs, “I’m gonna marry that Gem.”

“I don’t know what that means,” says Tiny tearfully; on her other side, Steven grabs her arm and leans in with a wobbly grin.

“Really!?”

Bismuth smiles, mimes zipping her mouth shut. “Just keep it to yourself, kid.”


End file.
